Waltzing Matilda

And we’re back! It’s the first review of the New Year, and we have the perfect tool to help you be better looking, better organised and an all-round better social media force in 2012! … It’s The Archivist.

As the year that was 2011 came to a bumpy end, newspapers, TV stations and blogs were full of those lists – the top tens and top one hundreds of the political events/albums/YouTube videos of cats that rocked the world. It’s one of those funny urges we have as human beings to look back and sum things up, to save and review and re-arrange out memories. We can talk about what happened and make plans to do it better this year.

When it comes to social media and the online word in general, the possibilities for looking back are bigger than ever before. Everything that has been said and done online stays there, which on the one hand is a bit terrifying, but on the other creates exciting possibilities for review. Tweets and topics can be tracked, found and organised, by issue, by least to most shared, and not just for posterity or nostalgia’s sake – the potential for improving what we do there on the basis of what has and hasn’t worked in the past is very real.  It can also give you something tangible to show for what you’ve done, which is a rare victory in social media, and definitely has its uses.

Image: The Archivist, from http://www.techi.com/2010/06/microsoft-unleashes-the-archivist/

What’s it all about?

The Archivist is a service that uses the Twitter Search API to find and archive or save tweets. By entering certain keywords or hashtags, you can monitor and store all the relevant Tweets. The Archivist then uses this data to make nice graphs for you – top 10 tweets, top users, top words or URLs, tweet versus retweet ratio.

The guys behind the service ( Mix Online at Microsoft) are clear in pointing out that The Archivist doesn’t have access to the Twitter ‘firehose’, i.e. all of the tweets ever tweeted, so the data that is presented serves as a representation of general trends, rather than being completely exhaustive. There is also a three archive limit, but see below for a handy trick to get around this (sssh!)

Why should you be interested?

By archiving tweets in this way, you can essentially analyse the success of a Twitter campaign or presence. You can use this data, and particularly the oh-so-lovely graphs to find out who’s sharing your content, what’s popular and what you need to work on. It’s also possible to export the graphs into reports, or share them with your networks online to show how you’re doing. You can learn form your successes, you failures, and crucially, from your audience (and explain to your bosses what you’re doing right).

How it works:

1. 1. Download the software if you’re using the desktop version, or set up your online account.
2. Set the #hashtags that you want to track.
3. Charts will be automatically generated by The Archivist – you can chose to make them ‘public’ to share with your network, or ‘private’ to keep records that only you can see.
4. Copy and paste the charts into internal reports or export your saved tweets to a tab delimited text file and view the information in Excel.
5. Run charts, graphs, or other analysis on the tweets and discover trends.
6. Click on the charts to go to the source documents (e.g. profile of specific Twitter users) or to get more detailed information.

“Backdoor” allowing a user to bypass the three archive limit:

1. Sign out of The Archivist
2. Enter the term you want to start archiving
3. Click ’save’ – this will prompt you to sign in and, once you sign in, the archive will be saved – clever, eh?

The downsides

Because it doesn’t have access to the firehose, there is limited possibility for backtracking or searching for things that have been said in the past – the tracking of tweets begins in earnest once the project begins.

It also only works with Twitter, so if that’s not where your audience are, this one might not be for you.

The upshot

This tool is free, easy and really useful. It’s worth putting the time in to setting up archives, particularly if you’re running a campaign on Twitter. You might not realise it immediately, but you will find at some point that you want this data, and sourcing it afterwards is not fun. Plus the graphs are pretty, did we mention that?

So get started this New Year. Just like keeping a diary or saving your receipts, you’ll be glad you did.

@AmyJColgan

Number of views: 381

Guest blog from Tony Lockett of DG Regio on using online tools and social media to colloborate and communicate across the regions.

Look beyond Brussels, and you’ll see that the European Union is more than European Council summits, the Berlaymont building and the bars of Place Lux.

Whether you live in Andalucia or the Aland Islands, it’s often at the regional and local level that EU policies and funding make a real difference to people’s lives.

But how can we get the word out about what’s getting done, and share our experiences and good practices with other regions across Europe?

This blog post looks at some of the ways that we are trying to use social media and online tools to promote networking and collaboration between Europe’s regions.

We’d love to receive your comments and suggestions!

© Ministerium für Arbeit, Soziales, Frauen und Familie (Land Brandenburg)

EU regional policy

Regional funding accounts for one third of the European Union’s budget.  The policy is designed to help less developed regions to catch up, as well as promoting economic growth and competitiveness across the EU.

Support is provided for hundreds of thousands of projects each year in a wide range of areas, including transport, environment, energy, training, business support, research and innovation.

EU regional policy is delivered through a system of “shared management”.  This means that national and regional authorities have an important role to play in the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of funding programmes.

For more information on how this works, have a look at the EU regional policy website

Communicating regional policy

We have three main communication objectives for 2012:

1. Highlighting the impact of EU regional funding, particularly by shining a spotlight on good projects (eg. through our annual ‘RegioStars‘ awards).
2. Showing how EU regional policy is helping to support the Europe 2020 targets for smart, sustainable and inclusive growth.
3. Explaining the changes that the Commission has proposed for the next funding period in 2014-2020.

Our key target audiences include:

With our sector and our networks:

1. national and regional authorities who manage EU funding
2. regional development agencies and project partners
3. Other EU, national and regional officials
4. NGOs and social partners

With a wider reach:

1. journalists working for EU, national and regional media
2. the academic and research community
3. members of the wider public with an interest in how EU regional policy is making a difference in their region.

In line with the principle of “shared management”, the Commission works closely with the managing authorities responsible for EU regional funding programmes, as well as the Commission’s Representations and networks like Europe Direct.

For more on this, check out the Information and Communication Plan 2012 (Regional Policy)

In other words, EU regional policy involves a large number of actors at the European, national and regional level who need to be in communication with each other, and online tools provided a potential way to do this.

Online collaboration

In order to provide new opportunities for cooperation online, the Commission launched a Drupal-based platform called RegioNetwork 2020 in October 2010.

The features offered by the site include:

1. Creation of a profile on behalf of a region or as an individual.
2. Creation of a groups, discussion forums, wikis etc.
3. Sharing and rating good practice examples.
4. Sharing photos and videos.
5. Opinion polls.
6. Webchats (we have organised several with Commissioner Hahn).

One year after the launch of the site, RegioNetwork now brings together over 2000 registered users from all EU countries.  Progress has been encouraging, but there have been a number of challenges, which we are hoping to address in a new version of the site that will be launched in Spring 2012:

1. Usability of the site and performance issues
2. Identifying and developing tools that people really need to collaborate online
3. Changing habits and stimulating interaction

Social media

Our key target audiences are increasingly using social media, particularly Twitter, to publicise their work, discuss issues relating to EU regional policy and connect with people who have similar interests.

The @EU_Regional Twitter account has allowed us to join these conversations, learn more about what people are thinking and saying, share information and make some interesting new connections.

We have also been using the European Commission’s Facebook page to share videos and images that tell great stories about EU-funded projects, including the winners of our annual RegioStars competition.

Our Flickr account has also provided a place for us to share photos, particularly around big events like the European Week of Cities and Regions that takes place each year in October.

Looking ahead to 2012

Here are some of the things that we hope to implement and improve in 2012:

1. Launch a new version of the RegioNetwork 2020 site, taking into account feedback from users on their needs and interests
2. Work with the Commission’s Representations, as well as the INFORM network of communication officers in managing authorities, to share information about EU-funded projects via social media in specific countries and languages.
3. Work with the finalists and winners in our annual RegioStars awards to use social media to promote their projects.
4. Share images of events and projects on Flickr, as well as the Commission’s Facebook page.  Encourage more user-generated content (maybe a photo competition …).
5. Reach out to bloggers (particularly those who are active at the national and regional level, since EU regional policy does not seem to be a priority for most of the Eurobloggers …).
6. Test different social media monitoring tools so that we can improve the way we measure the impact of our activities, as well as gain intelligence about what people are saying on social media about issues related to EU regional policy.

So, what do you think?  Let us know what more we could be doing to use social media and online tools to connect Europe’s regions!

Tony Lockett @TonyLbxl

Number of views: 877

I wanted to do a story about this for a while, mainly because it is a good story of how social media are important in a local context. But especially because I live close to a Brussels Fritkot which advertises itself with a big sign “Google : FRITKOTBOMPA”:

However, this is a story of discovery, because obviously it doesn’t stop there. But to start from the beginning, if you actually do Google “Fritkotbompa”, this is the top three:

I was feeling brave and clicked on the first link, fritkotbompa.tripod.com. And there, on a black background, was the address and phone number of Fritkot Bompa, accompanied by the menu and a very interesting disco song: “Je n’ai jamais mangé les frites de Bruxelles”. Try it for yourself, it’s an eye opener! And as a bonus, it’s on repeat!

Continuing down the web trail of Fritkot Bompa it is interesting to see how they are actively promoting themselves on social media. The fritkot doesn’t have a Facebook page, but I have sent the profile Fritkot Bompa a friend request (so I’ll be friend no 430 I hope). Who wouldn’t want to be friends with their local frites master? And with a max of 5.000 friends on Facebook I guess they still have time before they have to change to a page.

The good thing is I think this guy ‘gets it’: He is actually asking for reviews of the new house sauce “Bompa” (“tomatised” mayonnaise with pilli pilli and parsley):

Comment vous trouvez la nouvelle sauce bompa ?
est -ce quelle doit rester dans l’assortiment ?
Et la sauce ketje , vous aimerez la retour ?

He probably could do a lot more in this respect to get people to submit ideas and evaluate products, but I have the feeling he’s running a one man business, so perhaps it’s too much work. However, I absolutely love his use of pictures. See for instance the Sauce XL (Ixelles) with dill and aniseed. Or the Hawaii-style Potato? Or this little collection of vehicles belonging to his top customers?

At the same time I am slowly understanding something about fritkots: frites are important, but the sauces are their signature, where they are different from the rest. Get the sauce right, and you have the addicts coming back for your unique product?!

Geolocation?
Seems Bompa hasn’t discovered Foursquare yet, and it seems also that very few customers actually use Twitter (here’s an exception). But maybe he’s right: Why go on Foursquare if your customers are on Facebook? In any case, here comes the scoop of this story: THERE’S AN APP FOR THAT! Yes, you heard me, there is actually an app for finding the 49 best fritkots in Brussels (I was of course relieved to see that it’s only 1.59€ at the app store):

By the way, Bompa’s frites are delicious, I totally approve of the 100% Mission of Fritkot Bompa. But even though they do have a house sauce, I am a bit of a conservative with my frites  so I went for a straight mayonnaise on my recon visit.

Will have to try Sauce Bompa today to mend the New Year’s hangover. Or perhaps XL to do the local thing.

If he’s open. After all, This Is Belgium ;o)

@AnneCbxl

Number of views: 599

What a year.  Sitting here looking back there are just so many things we did in the last 12 months, which are worth remembering. But I will pick a few highlights, because it’s late and I want to go home ;o)

The team
First of all I owe it to our fabulous trainees to give them praise and kudos and lots of good wishes for their future. Over the last year, we’ve had Mara Mendes (1/10 2010 to 28/2 2011), Fleur Horbach (1/3 – 31/7 2011) and currently Amy Colgan is with us until the end of February. They’ve all been great contributions to the team and Bert and I couldn’t do much without them. Trainees bring in fresh eyes and new ideas to our little team, and we hope that they are able to use the experiences they get here in the job hunt after the ’stage’.

On that note, I would recommend young people with an interest in web/social media/government communication to apply to the Commission’s traineeship programmes, there are many opportunities to get involved, either in our team or in a communication unit/webteam in one of the DGs working on topics of your interest.

• Application for the winter stage 2012/13 opens on 3 January 2012 and closes on 31 January 2012

Another great contribution to our team is Linda Broughton who is our monitoring expert, she has brought us a much wanted competence and is the main driver in teaching colleagues to monitor and idetify online discussions to take part in and to evaluate their reach and influence on the platforms where they are active – which is important if you want to explain to the hierarhcy why social media pays off.

The Guidelines
The Commission’s staff guidelines on social media were finally published in August/September. I can’t tell you what a relief this was, as we started drafting them in the late fall of 2009 if I’m not mistaken. It was just around the change between the Barroso I and Barroso II Commission. They’ve been revised so many times I can’t remember how they looked in the beginning! But in any case they are there and the main important message is:

Commission staff can engage on social networks in a personal capacity, but must bear in mind that they are always bound by the staff regulations. Also on the internet.

What’s more important is we have also published a general EC “policy” on social media use, which contains more practical guidance for our colleagues and links to an internal wiki where we have put even more practical stuff helping our colleagues to get up to speed.  It’s becoming a regular goldmine!

The Social Media Network
The last thing I wanted to stress is the Social Media Network. It was established in April and there is as a minimum one mandated member per DG in the Commission, who is acting as the contact point between us and the DGs, who are using social media more and more. Most of the members manage official accounts on Twitter and Facebook for their DGs.

In principle the network also includes all our spokespeople and their press officers, as well as Heads of Commission representations and their press officers. But despite good intentions it’s difficult to get them all in one room, so we are trying to make sure we use all the opportunities we can to give them training and coaching on the go. Our team mailbox COMM SOCIAL MEDIA TEAM is more and more well known among colleagues, so we try to help as best we can and as fast as we can.

We’ve managed to organise two meetings in the spring and a seminar in November this year, which I sincerely hope has been useful for our colleagues. I think it is really important that they also get to know each other personally so that the network will be real and not just virtual, if we are going to make sure they use each other well in the future.

And we’ve done so many internal trainings and presentations here in Brussels that I’ve lost count of the number. But it’s really satisfying to be able to share your knowledge and get to meet so many dedicated colleagues working in specific policy areas who are curious and want to learn more.

All in all, it’s been quite a year. And we are almost at the end of it.

What’s up for next year?
I am glad to be able to say there is more to come in 2012, where we will hopefully look more into helping our colleagues integrate social media in communication strategies and offer more trainings and master classes on specific topics ogf interest.

Stay tuned for a very special blog post on January 1st on Frites and Social Media!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all of you!

@AnneCbxl

Number of views: 888

The internet is increasingly mobile in Europe.  So should the EU go mobile? If it does, how can the institutions effectively connect with Europeans through their mobile devices?

Figuring this out requires a couple of steps.  Let’s begin by looking at the landscape of European mobile. Then we’ll go over some basic principles to use when thinking about and designing a European site or application for a mobile device. And remember, mobile is an evolving landscape that will change a lot in the next few years.

A brief look at Europe’s mobile landscape.

How Europe is different?

Like everything else European, Europe’s mobile landscape is diverse.

Internet mobility is not uniform across the Member States. One in five Belgians has a smart phone. In Estonia, it’s estimated that only one out of six households connects with the web via a mobile device.  ComScore claims that only 38% of the Spanish had a smartphone at then end of 2010. In Slovenia, a country with an internet penetration of about 69%, just 20% of these internet users connect via a mobile device. Yet 29% of Finns between the ages of 16 and 74 may prefer to use a mobile device to go online.

Nor is everybody in  each Member State using the same mobile platforms. StatCounter keeps a running tally of the top mobile operating systems used in Europe. Apple’s iOS  leads the pack, followed by Android (who recently outstripped Blackberry). Yet these European trends vary when it comes to different Member States, with Blackberry still leading Android in certain countries.

How is Europe  similar?

Thankfully, most mobile internet users follow the same trends when it comes to what they use their mobile internet time to do:

1) They kill time with mail and social networks (according to comScore, the mobile social networking audience grew 44% in a year in the EU5), reading news and playing games or listening to music.

2) They search for information that they need right away, especially local information (travel or transport, weather, restaurants).

Users with access to mobile internet do access the internet pretty regularly via their devices. About half access it every day. (According to statistics gathered posted by Google, in the UK, 55% of smartphone users access the internet via their mobile every day. In France, 59%, and in Germany, 45%.)

So now that we’re a bit more familiar with the landscape, let’s see what sort of plans we can make when it comes to the EU and mobile.

The plan

First: do you need to “go” mobile?

Almost every site benefits from mobile presence. Users are there, and many of these users connect to the internet ONLY via their mobile. And if resources allow and the content of your site changes often (daily, weekly, monthly) or could be needed when people are away from home, then a mobile presence is even more desirable.

Second: if yes, you need a STRATEGY!

Business and users needs are basic in the creation of any new web tool. Usability and consistency of user experience throughout the different platforms are fundamental. BBC future mobile strategy (they did their first WAP site 10 years ago) provides a great example of analysis of users needs and definition of business goals.

The definition of the rest of your mobile strategy will be easy IF you rely on users and business needs.

Third: App or mobile site?

Apps test better than mobile sites with users.

=> Apps 1 – Site 0

• Mobile sites are easily discoverable while users need to know about apps in advance.

=> Apps 1 – Site 1

• Apps are specific to a device, so more time and money consuming to develop than mobile sites that are platform independent.

=> Apps 1 – Site 2

• Apps make full use of device characteristics and are integrated with all the other apps and functionalities of the phone. A mobile site cannot reach this level of integration.

=> Apps 2 – Site 2.

It’s good to keep in mind that apps are useful for repeated users and repeated actions. For example, many top apps allow you to get directions, play a game, or document a moment – something you’ll do more than once and while away from home or the office.

Mobile sites are best for occasional users. For example, users will not be inclined to download an app to know the opening hours of an office…Knowing users and their top tasks tells you whether you want a mobile site or an app.

The same will happen when deciding which devices to target. Designing for the lowest common denominator (including feature phones) may create frustration and disappointment for some smartphone users, but shouldn’t a public service be as accessible as possible? Knowledge of users, their profiles and habits can help the business (in this case the Commission) refine/tweak its goals.

The best apps are simple and easy-to-use. A good app has a clear, uncomplicated purpose that adds value to the user’s day.

Third: “The fat-finger syndrome will be with us for years to come”(Jakob Nielsen)

Human fingertips are typically 16–20 mm in diameter and this is just one of the design constraints that we should never forget, together with screen size and CONTEXT.

In the absence of clear standards, design for mobile experience is based on basic principles and best practices. Reading the human interface guidelines for every device (e.g. Android HIG, Apple iOS HIG, etc.) is a good starting point, but don’t forget to test with real users and real devices.

Just one more thing: mobile devices are very powerful and mobile experience is about making full use of capacities and possible interactions. Not an easy task, if we want to at least satisfy our users.Have you already defined your mobile strategy? Please comment to share it with us….

@Linda_Margaret with the aid of DG COMM’s in-house web / mobility expert Monica Solombrino

Number of views: 1160

For most people, social media is not what they do, but what they do now on top of all the stuff they did before. It’s a juggling act, and not one to be underestimated – you need to look after your pages, and get fresh and interesting content out on a rolling basis. Keeping all those balls in the air is no joke.

So, in an attempt to find ways to take the stress out of going social, this week we’ve been taking a look at dlvr.it.

What’s it all about?

dlvr.it is an online distribution tool that is designed to save you time by automating your posts across social media platforms.

If you have a blog or RSS feed(s), you can link it up to dlvr.it so that new items will be automatically published across your various pages, taking some of the manual labour out of the task and making sure it doesn’t get forgotten.

You can also use the software to manage and time your posts, and decide what type of messages should go out through which channels. The message you want to get out via Twitter will often differ from the line you take on Facebook, so you can decide that news about one subject/containing certain keywords should go out on one and not on another.

Why should you be interested?

Large news/publishing organisations with big volumes of updates coming out on a consistent basis – Reuters is probably the best example – use this type of tool as a way of managing their distribution. Smaller brands and organisations with less news but also less in the way of human resources also rely on this sort of automatic posting as a way of keeping their online presence consistent and up-to-date. In an EU context, DG Research have found this tool to be really helpful in terms of managing their social media outlets – check out Innovation Union on Facebook to see it in action.

In either of these contexts, dlvr.it can be a good option. It’s free – always a plus – and has added a number of additional tools to its belt in terms of monitoring and analysis. You can establish which of your posts are being clicked through, shared, what times of the day are the most fruitful et cetera, and adjust your online behaviour accordingly. (In case you hadn’t noticed, we just can’t stop talking about how much we love monitoring).

How it works:

1. Create your account at http://dlvr.it/. Confirm your account via an email to your selected email.

2. Input your blog or news site’s RSS feeds.

3. Select the first tool that you would like to deliver the feed. Tools that can be selected include Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, LinkedIn, another RSS feed, MySpace, and you can add another destination.

4. When selecting a Facebook tool, ensure that you select ‘do not allow’ by clicking the ‘x’ to ensure that dlvr.it cannot access your Facebook insights or more pages than you desire (if you are the administrator of different pages).

5. Below the ‘Sources’ box, you can also access ‘route settings’. This allows you to filter what is automatically posted via the title, content, category, author, or link included in a post.

6. You can also select a shortening service that you use (dlvr.it, bit.ly, etc.) in order to make all links appear shortened AND to continue to track your links via your preferred shortening service.

7. Manage your ‘destinations via the destination tab.

8. Follow your stats at the tab called ‘Stats’ (followers, clicks, posts, popular posts).

9. Direct post – Add, schedule, and schedule the destination (twitter or Facebook) of particular posts.

10. Widgets – Build your own widget to display the top posts and click-throughs on your web page.

The downsides

The obvious problem with automatic posting is that it’s automatic posting, and people can tell. It can look machine-generated, and while that’s not always a problem – if you’re a huge news organisation, it’s pretty much expected – it’s not ideal either.

Social media is meant to be social, a conversation, and if you’re not genuinely present, you won’t be able to engage to the same extent, to answer questions or pick up on what people are saying to/about you. In an age where news is so accessible and we’re all bombarded with information, you have to weigh up the benefits of simply broadcasting.

That said, there is nothing stopping you from doing both. You can also post directly (manually) though dlvr.it, which means you can have one dashboard where you control automated posts as well as engaging in person when you can and letting people know that there is a human face behind the curtain.

The upshot

Whether or not dlvr.it is right for you is entirely dependent on the context you’re working in and the content you are producing. Having a plan and being realistic keep coming up as the most important things when it comes to doing social media well. If you think there is merit in and an audience for your content online, but there can’t be someone tending to your pages full time, this could be the right way forward. It might look machine-generated, and you might not be truly engaging, but consistency is important, and anything that can help you to juggle the new communication challenges is worth exploring.

Have you tried it out? Are you thinking about it? Send us your thoughts!

@AmyJColgan

Number of views: 832

As the in-house metrics ‘expert’, I’ve been asked to write about why measuring and monitoring social media is not only simple but essential.

So the point of this post is plain:

Find a tool to consistently measure and monitor social media – and online media in general – BEFORE you start your communications action (online or offline), DURING your communications action, and AFTER your communications action.

Use this tool to tell who is discussing what where with what tone and why. Determine how this will impact what you want to communicate.

Okay, if you’ve limited time, you can stop reading now. If you want more specifics, scan for the section in this post that interests you most or be old-fashioned and actually read the whole thing.

Measuring and monitoring social media – overview

Two major advantages of social media over traditional media are that you can:

• assess the state of play when it comes to your target audience and target topic online (i.e. identify where, with whom, why, and via what content your topic is discussed)
• gauge quickly and in-depth how your story has been received from the moment of its release up to the months and even years following its distribution.

Tools available

I’ve reviewed and tested over 50 different paid social media monitoring tools, not to mention the numerous free tools that are out there, and I still haven’t tried even a third of what’s available.  Suffice to say, there is no lack for choice when it comes to tools you can use to first map online discussion and then measure your impact on that discussion.

As I said, there are many measurement tools available, both for a price and for free. I like to think of them as belonging to three general categories of tools (and some tools belong to more than one category):

1. Free tools provided by the social media platforms themselves. No platform online today is built without offering metrics. Some common examples include:

• Google alerts come straight to your email (if you have Gmail or Yahoo.)
• Facebook Insights are free if you have a Facebook fan or group page.
• YouTube Insights are free for those seeking to optimise and then measure the success of a video for searches on YouTube or Google (YouTube’s owner). If you’re seeding a video, don’t forget to consider free tools like TubeMogul, which help you target video content for particular audiences (and offer their own free metrics).
• Twitter analytics are not widely available yet, but the micro-blogging service has promised to offer free analytics for users. This will vastly improve how effectively we can use Twitter. Till then, try other free tools like Commun.it or ManageFlitter.
• Bit.ly analytics are offered by the free link-shortening service.

2. Tools built using the free ‘APIs’ or application interfaces provided by many of these platforms (e.g. Klout, Tweetreach, the Archivist, etc.) Many software-as-a-service tools (e.g. Engagor, also found below in the third category) aggregate free APIs to create a dashboard where you can compare analytics across several platforms in a central location. This saves you time in coordinating and analysing your web communications, gives you great graphs that let you see how you’re doing at a glance, and ensure you’re consistent in what you compare.

3. Software-as-a-service (SAAS) tools that often have their own ‘web crawlers’ or specialised data-mining software that collects and catalogues online content to create charts and graphs about what kind of content and which particular topic is popular where and with which demographic via which social media platform. SAAS tools include Engagor, Radian6, Attensity, Heartbeat, Synthesio, Sprout Social, Integrasco etc. – like I said, I have reviewed 50+ of these, indicating it’s a growing business….

Manage your expectations when it comes to any of these. No tool is comprehensive – the web is just too big (and growing) – but all tools are good indicators – as long as you use them consistently.

Some notes on social media analytics available through online SAAS tools (Radian6, Engagor, Alterian, etc.)

As noted above, there are a myriad of paid tools (Engagor, Radian6, Attensity, Heartbeat, Synthesio, Sprout Social, Integrasco etc.) that offer the ability to combine all the analytics you have into a central ‘dashboard.’ Using keywords defined by you, this dashboard provides graphs that display up-to-date metrics measuring current online conversation and content produced that relates to your topic, institution, or issue. These metrics catalogue all relevant content according to:

• Type of online media (blog, online news, social network, video, photo, etc.)
• Language.
• Country of origin (This is found through scanning the public profiles of users who identify themselves as from a particular country, through looking at languages used, and through locating users’ servers.)
• Trending topics (keywords and phrases that are frequently associated online with your topics of interest.)
• Date of posting (when the content was posted, shared, re-tweeted, etc.)

SAAS tools also usually offer services such as:

• The ability to ‘drill down’ within the data, accessing original content (e.g. specific Tweets, blogs, public Facebook posts, etc.). In addition to examining the content via the dashboard, you should be able to export this content into Excel sheets or CSV files if you want.
• To create customised visualisations of data for specific time periods, languages, countries, type of media, etc.
• To identify influencers within specific topics, social networks, or online communities.
• To engage directly with individuals or organisations via the dashboard,
• To email, flag, or isolate posts of interest to you or others in your social media team,
• To integrate other analytics into your project, such as your website analytics, your Facebook analytics, your RSS feeds, etc.

Back to the overview on social media monitoring tools in general

For those with access, we provide more information about different tools for monitoring and measuring social media in the DG COMM’s social media wiki. For everyone else, you can see here, here, and here for lists and reviews of social media monitoring tools.

Heck (as we polite Anglophones say), just type ’social media monitoring’ or ’social media measurement’ into any search engine and you’ll get plenty of reviews, descriptions, and videos about tools and how to use them.

In sum:

1. Measuring and monitoring tools exist.
2. You should take a clear decision about which tools you want to use to measure what and why.
3. You should be measuring and monitoring using those tools.

The proper understanding and use of these tools helps in first planning and then evaluating the success of your communications – and in learning lessons for the future.

Reporting and monitoring social media

Reporting should be an important element of your social media activity. Not only does reporting help you to improve your activities, but it shows your management the value and impact of social media.

Depending on the length of your social media communication action, you may want consider a weekly or a monthly reporting exercise, with quantitative and qualitative metrics.

Quantitative metrics include things everyone can agree on – like number of followers, overall language or origin of followers, percentage of tweets vs. retweets, ratio of men to women or of Germans to Romanians commenting on a post. Qualitative metrics are those measurements you and your monitoring team should try to agree on before you start and may have to modify as you go along – stuff like tone of audience, perception of your content, and sentiment (this is a tricky one as sarcasm and humour can easily fool people and machines).

Before you start communicating online, discuss the format of your report as a part of your overall strategy. Some things to consider in building your report:

1. As always, know who your audience is and which online tools they already use and where and build this into your monitoring report. In social media, it is usually a waste of time to build a platform and then try to build an online community around that platform. Communities already exist – find them and go to them with the tools and the information that they want.  Decide which social media tools will be the most effective for which audience, why you think this, and then determine how you will prove this in your monitoring report.
2. What quantitative and qualitative indicators per social media tool are important in determining whether or not you are achieving your communication objectives?
3. List the indicators according to the tool used.
4. Identify dates that are important to the social media strategy proposed.
5. Propose benchmarks, or ask that your service providers provide benchmarks, that you aim to achieve by specific dates.
6. Verify these benchmarks using similar strategies, applications, and communication actions implemented. Most service providers can help in this. For example, if a viral video is released through specified social media channels, a service provider that regularly releases viral videos should be able to predict a minimum number of clickthroughs (number of times the video is clicked on by a user) overall. Most service providers build their business around being able to make these sorts of guarantees.
7. Figure out how to monitor your online communication efforts to see if you are reaching, not reaching, or exceeding your benchmarks. Reallocate resources accordingly to ensure that you achieve maximum impact from your social media communications (e.g. If a lot of your content is being circulated by several different users on Twitter, you may want to spend more time and effort on distributing content via your Facebook Page or blog in order to increase interest via these platforms.)
8. Determine when and how you will report on your results to your communications team. Social media and online communications can point to opportunities in offline communications and vice-versa. To ensure that you and your team are communicating as best as you can, share information and coordinate activities. Propose influencers within a topic that you have discovered via your online monitoring and identify trends and upcoming events that may benefit offline communications.
9. Ensure that your report cites ‘lessons learned.’ Learn from your work. Identify where you could improve in a future communications effort. Cite under and over-represented linguistic and geographic target audiences and figure out which issues related to your topic are important to them. Use your work as feedback into your team’s overall communication efforts.

Social media and your website analytics

First, make sure that you have set up the analytics for your home website. See what search terms are leading people there, what individual items are most popular and how long people stay. Get an idea of what your audience is interested in and with that the issues are that are most likely to resonate with your target audience in social media. Measure your site’s “referrers” to find out where site traffic comes from.

While important, site traffic is not necessarily indicative of you’re the success of, for example, a social media campaign, provided that increasing site traffic was not a specific goal of the campaign. Often, members of your target audience get the information that they want from your social media action, so they may not necessarily feel compelled to check out your home page. This does not mean the home page is unimportant – it is often the central and the official point of reference for content used in the campaign.

However, the beauty of social media is that it brings the content to the community rather than forcing the community to go in search of the content. That said, a good way to measure the impact of a social media page is to compare, for example, the Facebook Insights of your Facebook page with your website analytics. Determine which attracts the most traffic, from which sources, at which times, and which content per page is most popular with visitors, etc.

A note on web analysis and offline communications

Remember, the online world often mirrors the offline world, so don’t forget to use at least some online analysis when you plan offline events and communications. With online metrics, you can discover the names of influential speakers about a topic even if the speaker him or herself never posts anything to the web. People blog, tweet, and talk about influencers on forums. Online metrics will also let you track the birth of a new trend and the top buzz words online so you know how people are talking about a particular idea or concept.

Conclusion

You can measure the potential, the current, and the long-term impact of any social media communications campaign. Because you can, you should. So choose some tools, if you haven’t already, and get to it.

@Linda_Margaret

@EC_MatildaBlog

Number of views: 1928

Trying to get a message out on social media can feel a bit like trying to make an announcement at a crowded party. There’s music playing, a thousand conversations happening at once and it would something pretty dramatic for everyone to stop and listen. If you don’t take decisive, standing-on-table or glass-clinking action, chances are you’ll just be talking to yourself.

Sprout Social is one of a number of tools that attempts to help you overcome this problem by getting your message out, in the right way, to the right people, and thus helping it spread – without you having to grab the microphone and burst into song.

So can it make the difference?

What’s it all about?

Sprout Social is a social media management tool. Its purpose is to make the time you spend engaging with social media platforms as effective, efficient and impactful as possible – and isn’t that just the holy grail of buzzwords right there?

Basically, this tool allows you to link up your various online identities – your Facebook page(s), you Twitter account(s) etc, and control them all from one place. You can then use your Sprout Social dashboard to publish and schedule updates across all of your platforms, ideally cutting down on time it takes to keep on top of everything. You can respond to comments and questions that come in across the platforms, and keep track of your engagement. Several members of a team can work as administrators in managing this, with assigned tasks, and others can check who has done what.

Crucially, you can also monitor and analyse the effectiveness of what you’re doing, and find ways to make it better. By using the tool to track buzzwords and certain influential profiles or blogs, you can tap into the conversations that are already happening online and engage in them. You can see how far your own message is spreading and draw some conclusions as to why – who the people are that share your posts and talk about you, and what messages are proving interesting to the online community.

Why should you be interested?

Essentially, if you are an organisation or company with and need to both get your messages out and bring all of your online identities together in a cohesive, strategic way, this tool sets itself up to be your engine room. The importance of monitoring, thinking cleverly in terms of the targets of your message, and seeing how effective what you’re doing is, should not be underestimated. Just like a physical conversation, you need to know who’s listening, and be prepared to listen yourself.

It’s not  a free service, and it you want the full host of analytic tools that are on offer, it’s not cheap, but the idea is that it could save you time, allow to stay on top of what’s happening in social media, and serve to get people listening to what you have to say.

How it works

1.  Create your account.
2.  Link your online identities to the account (Facebook, Twitter, video channel etc.)
3.  Identify Twitter profiles and keywords that you wish to monitor.
4.  Use the tool to manage your online media presence, interact with your audience and to   monitor the impact of your online media identities.

There is a free 30 day trial available, but if you want to take on the tool after that, subscriptions run from 9 euro to over 800 euro per month – the cost depends on the number of identities you need to manage, and the level of monitoring and support you need.

Confused? Here’s a quick video that explains in pretty well.

The downsides

Obviously, depending on your resources, the main downside is the cost, and it also isn’t necessarily the best option if you want to monitor social media in a range of languages – this tool won’t do that for you (see Brittany’s comment below for clarification on this!)

Unlike tools like Engagor, Sprout Social does not attempt to monitor the whole online world, only the online world that it and you deem relevant to your online profiles. Sprout Social is more about seeing the online world from the perspective of your online profile(s) rather than seeing your online profile(s) from the perspective of the online world – think of it as inductive rather than inductive listening.

The upshot

Monitoring and management are both great ideas in terms of working smarter in social media. Whether or not you need this sort of one-stop-shop depends very much on the level of time and resources available to you, and the amount of identities you have to manage. If you’ve got a team of people and lots of identities to keep up, and you need to ensure that you’re doing it cohesively and cleverly, this could be a good option. If you’re working with one or two Twitter accounts, there might be other (free) tools that you can combine to get the job done.

As always, we’d be delighted to here what you think!

@AmyJColgan and @Linda_Margaret

Number of views: 906

Early this year, the team in DG Communication launched a survey to find out who was using the European Commission website and what they were looking for from the site. The European Commission site is designed to help individual citizens and other stakeholders find information about the Commission, from recent news to how to exercise your rights as a European citizen – like your right to live and work in another Member State.

The survey results will be used to use to improve the EC’s site.

Questions covered things like:

• What sector do you work in?
• Why did you come to the website? What were you looking for?
• Did you find what you wanted?
• What’s your overall opinion of the site?
• How often do you visit the site?

The survey is on permanently and allows us to keep track of possible changes in our core users and core tasks to be covered.

We’ve aggregated and catalogued the results. We now know better who’s visiting, how often, why, and how they feel about their visit.

Who are the users?

Most of our users come from the public sector (either from a government or an international organisation), followed by students, businesses, teachers, and finally press and media.  A quarter of the users are lobbyists.

How often do they visit?

About 20 percent of users visit the site a few times each year while 34 percent are first-time users. Daily visitors are just under 10 percent. Lobbyists are the most obvious daily users – about 46 percent visit the EC’s website daily or at least once a week.

What do they want?

Users visiting the European Commission website want:

• Documents and publications (25 percent of overall users)
• Information on how the EU works (17.4 percent – usually public sector professionals and students)
• Grants and funding, tenders and public procurement (14 percent – users looking for this include businesses, public sector professionals, NGOs)
• News (13 percent – users in search of news are normally public sector professionals and students)
• Rights of European citizens (9 percent – students, public sector professionals)
• Public procurement and tenders (5 percent)
• Jobs with EU institutions (8 percent)

Do they like what they find?

Overall satisfaction with the site is good – about 70 percent rank the site as ‘very good’, ‘good’, or ’satisfactory’.

First-time users – usually students, PR professionals, lobbyists, or teachers – are pretty satisfied with the site, though they have ranked the site as ‘poor’ at slightly higher levels than the average user.

Unfortunately, those looking for documents gave the lowest satisfaction rating, with 13 percent ranking the site either ‘poor’ or ‘very poor’.

Of course, now we have to take this information and use it to improve the site.

Good websites are constantly evolving, providing new, up-to-date information in a way that conforms with audience expectations. That’s why we conduct these surveys – to make certain that the Commission knows our online public and provides them with what they want where they can easily find it.

Are there any other websites out there conducting their own user surveys? We’d love to here how you plan to evolve for your audience.

@Linda_Margaret

@EC_MatildaBlog

Click to enlarge this shot of the Commission home page with popular user sections highlighted.

Number of views: 1187

It’s Tuesday again (don’t they just keep coming around?) and this week we’re investigating the different types of Twitter wall tools – and the pros and cons of letting the Twitter conversation happen live on the big screen.

Observing the development of social media norms is like watching evolution in fast forward.  New customs and practices emerge, get established and discarded at break-neck speed, and it can be tough work just going with the flow when no one really knows where the flow is headed.

One of the new customs that we’re all in the process of figuring out is the role of social media at live events. We’ve had smart phones for long enough that people tweeting from a conference is expected, but it’s becoming the new norm for social media commentary to be encouraged and incorporated into the proceedings themselves. If Twitter is where the conversation is really happening, well let’s bring Twitter to the table.

Using a live Twitter/tweet wall is a potential way of doing that, and as we ran one ourselves at our Social Media Network event last week (see our next blog for what we heard, learned and shared there), we thought we’d give you the lowdown on the different options in terms of tools, and the pros and cons of putting the writing on the wall.

What’s it all about?

Basically, for those who haven’t come across this yet, a Twitter wall is a tailored stream that captures all the tweets that about a certain subject or event (i.e. that contain specific keywords or hashtags). You can project your Twitter wall or display it on screen at a live conference, and everyone can watch the tweets roll in/ join in the online commentary.

Why should you be interested?

In theory, a Twitter wall can facilitate a tech-savvy audience to do what they would be doing anyway – talking about you – but this way, their conversation becomes part of the event, and you get to listen and react. Everyone, including those who can’t be there in person, can follow what’s being said online and get involved with the debate. Crucially, you can choose to engage with it, letting people ask questions or contribute to discussions with a tweet.

Our experience using Tweetwally

We had a meeting of the Commission’s Social Media Network last week, and wanted to give both those who came along and those who couldn’t the opportunity to get involved. We decided to have a live Twitter wall, and settled on Tweetwally.

Tweetwally is a free online tool that let’s you filter your stream by hashtag, keyword or user.  We used the hashtag #eusmn, and featured it on a large screen and two smaller monitors in the room, and we had someone at the laptop passing questions on to the panel.

How it works:

1. Go to http://www.tweetwally.com/manage/.

2. Name your wall.

3. Provide a description for your wall.

4. Select your filters. All filters apply (i.e. the filters work together. If you select a hashtag and a keyword, you’ll only get the tweets that include both the hashtag and the keyword).

From our experience on the day, this is what we made of it:

Pros: It’s free, and simple to set up and use.

Cons: It fairly slow compared to a normal Twitter feed, with new tweets taking around 3 minutes to show up. You can’t customise the look and feel of it. There is also no pre-moderation, so the nature of the tweets on display is in the lap of the gods.  In this case, we were ok with that, and there were no major disasters!

Overall, we think it was a worthwhile exercise, but if you were in the room we’d love your feedback on it – just leave us a comment at the end.

The other options

We’ve had a look a couple of other Twitter wall tools too:

Twitterwall

This is another free online tool that lets you capture tweets with specific hashtags and keywords.

How it works:

1. Go to http://twitterwall.me/.

2. Choose the hashtags or words to display on your wall.

3. Select the link to the online image that you wish to appear as the background to your Twitterwall.

4. Project the messages on screens or walls, or display on monitors around the conference.

Pros: It’s free, and you can customise it with your own background. You also have the option to display video.

Cons: There’s no pre-moderation, so again you’re gambling a little bit in terms of what direction the online conversation is going to go in. You have to take the bad with the good.

Image of Obama Twitterwall from http://www.praetorius.com/create-your-own-twitterwall/

To create a wall that combines both Twitter and video, you need to select the video platform and cut and past the web address of the channel that you wish to play. The video will appear to the left of your Twitterwall, the live Tweets to the right, like so…

Example of video wall from http://www.praetorius.com/create-your-own-twitterwall/

TweetWallPro

This tool comes in a free and subscription version, with the free version featuring targeted advertising. So far, TweetWallPro is one of the best options we’ve come across, but we’d only really recommend using the subscription version, and it doesn’t come that cheap, so it’s not always going to be an option.

How it works:

1. Go to http://www.TweetWallpro.com/register/ and create your account.

2. Plan how, when and for how long you’d like to use the tool, and email http://www.TweetWallpro.com/pricing.html#pricing to discuss pricing and best options.

3. Choose the hashtags or words to display on your Twitterwall (the online conversations that you wish to capture).

4. Choose the visual look of the wall to suit your event.

5. Project the messages on screens or walls, or display on monitors around the conference.

Pros: This tool allows you to control the tweets that appear – definitely a big pro. You can either filter certain words out (e.g. swear words) or pre-moderate it, reading every tweet before it goes live on the wall, This obviously requires some man power, but it can be done by several people on smart phones or laptops.

It also lets you have a bit more fun with features like ‘battle mode’. You can ask a question and then let people battle it out about the answer via Twitter. This obviously has the potential to stimulate a bit more interaction, and there’s nothing wrong with a bit of friendly rivalry from time to time!

Cons: You’ve got to pay for it. The question is then whether or not the pre-moderation function is worth the money.

Interested?

Twitter walls can work really well and give a real sense of momentum and even community to an event, but there are two things to think about. The first is whether or not you’re prepared for the tweets that come in, and the second is whether you’ve got a genuine purpose and want to engage.

Those of you who were at this year’s EuroPCom might remember Jon Worth telling a story about how a Twitter wall went wrong when he and other online activists got organised and barraged a wall with anti-Berlusconi comments at an event that Berlusconi was attending. Yikes, eh? It’s a risk and something to think about. If you’re not able to pay for pre-moderation , or want to let the conversation happen, are you ok with the negative stuff, and are you able and willing to respond?  If you want to know what people are thinking, you need be prepared to listen. If there’s a technical problem, you will hear about it. If a speech is dull, you’ll hear about it. The writing really will be on the wall.

Jon also made the point, and we think it’s a good one, that you need to have a purpose for everything you do in social media.  Yes, things are moving quickly and we’re all experimenting, but we can experiment with a goal in mind and a plan to get there. If you’re going to incorporate social media into a conference with a Twitter wall, think about why you’re doing it and what it can add. Don’t do it just to look like you’re not falling behind, have a real use for that engagement and let it add something for everyone. Encourage people to ask questions that actually get answered, respond and comment, and give people a reason to join the debate.

Do you join in Twitter wall debates at events? Have you them work well, or be a disaster? We’re all ears!

Number of views: 989