When communicating across franchise and parent companies their is often a disassociation between them. This can often wreak havoc in building a corporate brand and being successful in the market. On the other hand a cohesive group will be strong and successful.
I recently purchased a new vehicle from a Chevy dealer. At the time they were under construction with a renovation, but I didn't think much of it. During the discussion with the sales person it can to light that this was a corporate driven initiative. The dealer wasn't given much choice other than to renovate or lose their franchise. It was then that I realized that all of the local Chevy dealers were going through the same transformation.
The idea for Chevy was to get a consistent look for all of the dealerships across the country. The dealers would then be brand identifiable, even without looking at the sign above the lot. While there was a great cost for the dealers, it was made up with marketing from a corporate level that made it look like it was custom for each dealer (due to the consistency).
I haven't reviewed the exact sales numbers since the dealership overhauls, but from the little news I have read GM sales have been increasing.
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
Blue Cross Blue Shield Case Study
When Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Hampshire revised their communication strategy they had already done interviews with several of the important stakeholders, including the subscribers. To understand the results of the change in communications they will need to re-interview many of the same demographics to see the change.
Additional measurements should be taken to see how comprehensive the reach was. By doing interviews or surveys of prospective insurance purchasers they can see if they have moved above any of the competition as target providers.
The communications with local offices can be done with satisfaction surveys. They could also review locations to see if the local offices are compliant with broadcasting the new messages.
Additional measurements should be taken to see how comprehensive the reach was. By doing interviews or surveys of prospective insurance purchasers they can see if they have moved above any of the competition as target providers.
The communications with local offices can be done with satisfaction surveys. They could also review locations to see if the local offices are compliant with broadcasting the new messages.
Measurement Plan for Higher Learning
I decided to review Michigan State University due to the size of the institution. I find that sometimes these larger institutions will try to rest on the reputation of prior years instead of pushing to greater things.
The first item that needs to be looked at is the mission of the university. Without this we don't know what we need to measure or where we want to go. The following is an excerpt from the mission statement:
Other audiences such as staff, parents, and the media all have additional stakes in the process as well but in a lesser role.
The objective will be to connect with the mission to as many students as possible. By making a connection to the students that the university is focused on research and philanthropy they can recruit the and guide students to be better people.
The initial benchmark will be to compare news coverage of current achievements of MSU students both past and present.
To determine a measurement tool I went to Google News and did some searches for MSU related topics. The thought is that MSU is a prominent institution and that they will likely be covered by larger news agencies that are included in the Google News section.
In my research for this to get an idea of their success I filtered through pages of results from Google News and was a little disappointed in the coverage. I realize this is sports season, but it took a page and a half to find the first non sports related article. While the one article I did find outside of sports seemed on target to the mission of the school. It was focused on a study performed at MSU. The second article I found was unrelated to the school directly but was about a students living conditions off campus.
If feel that while the sports coverage is good for MSU (as long as they are winning) since it gives a sense of pride to all students, the administration needs to focus on getting more publicity for the achievements of the school.
The first item that needs to be looked at is the mission of the university. Without this we don't know what we need to measure or where we want to go. The following is an excerpt from the mission statement:
As a public, research-intensive, land-grant university funded in part by the state of Michigan, our mission is to advance knowledge and transform lives by:When identifying the audiences that are important we need to look foremost at the students, past, present, and future. Those audiences will determine everything that MSU is. If the past students fail or all become disenfranchised it will become difficult to recruit new students. If current students leave, you have no legacy. If future students decide to go elsewhere there is no reason to have a school.
- providing outstanding undergraduate, graduate, and professional education to promising, qualified students in order to prepare them to contribute fully to society as globally engaged citizen leaders
- conducting research of the highest caliber that seeks to answer questions and create solutions in order to expand human understanding and make a positive difference, both locally and globally
- advancing outreach, engagement, and economic development activities that are innovative, research-driven, and lead to a better quality of life for individuals and communities, at home and around the world
Other audiences such as staff, parents, and the media all have additional stakes in the process as well but in a lesser role.
The objective will be to connect with the mission to as many students as possible. By making a connection to the students that the university is focused on research and philanthropy they can recruit the and guide students to be better people.
The initial benchmark will be to compare news coverage of current achievements of MSU students both past and present.
To determine a measurement tool I went to Google News and did some searches for MSU related topics. The thought is that MSU is a prominent institution and that they will likely be covered by larger news agencies that are included in the Google News section.
In my research for this to get an idea of their success I filtered through pages of results from Google News and was a little disappointed in the coverage. I realize this is sports season, but it took a page and a half to find the first non sports related article. While the one article I did find outside of sports seemed on target to the mission of the school. It was focused on a study performed at MSU. The second article I found was unrelated to the school directly but was about a students living conditions off campus.
If feel that while the sports coverage is good for MSU (as long as they are winning) since it gives a sense of pride to all students, the administration needs to focus on getting more publicity for the achievements of the school.
Distance Learning Case Study
When reviewing the effectiveness of an online program there are several considerations that can be used. Items such as the employment rate of graduates, the average salary of graduates, or the number of students enrolling specifically due to the added feature of online studies.
For Lawrence Technological University I would suggest two measurements, the graduation rate of those attending online classes versus those using on campus study only, and secondly the alumni donation rate of campus only versus online students. These measurements will provide an insight into the number of students that are committed to the university. If a significant number of students drop or transfer before graduation that was using online studies, there may be issues. Also, the number of donations or lack thereof from online students could create future issues with funding the university.
Outside of internal measurements that can be made, LTU can also rely on studies from USNews and other evaluation sources. USNews did rank the Online Graduate Engineering studies one of the "Top Online Graduate Engineering Programs".
The audiences that they need to target with the measurements are prospective students from high schools and transfers from other colleges. They should also target LTU administration that gives online directives as well as the IT support teams. If the students are not targeted or a bad relation exists the students will not enroll no matter how good the program is. Likewise, if the LTU staff don't have confidence in the program they will make the experience poor for students.
The communications from LTU seem to be somewhat effective for me. I am a transfer student that attended a local college and am attending LTU remotely. If they didn't have effective communications I would never have considered them an option.
Content Analysis for Nonprofits
In reviewing the content analysis for the Capital Area Humane Society (CAHS) I found that they are positively received by most everyone. There were a couple news articles relating to them and all responses were positive. They seem to be making an impact in the community through getting addition legislation passed to stiffen penalties for dog fighting related crimes and changing the attitudes towards this activity.
The social media items that I found were also quite positive. The reach in Facebook seems quite well with nearly 11,000 people "liking" them. Each individual post is getting around 100 likes as well, with good conversations of several comments.
One area that I had concern with was the YouTube presence. The have very little content and what they do have posted is around a year old. The videos contained some information on specific pets, but nothing about the operation. They were not getting much traffic for the videos either.
The recommendations that I would have for them is to expand on the YouTube coverage. Get more active content available for both the pets and the operations. The videos could be easily linked to from the Facebook feed that is already successful. The attachment that a person can have over video would seem greater than that of a picture. By gaining the attachment for specific pets, they could create greater adoption rates.
The social media items that I found were also quite positive. The reach in Facebook seems quite well with nearly 11,000 people "liking" them. Each individual post is getting around 100 likes as well, with good conversations of several comments.
One area that I had concern with was the YouTube presence. The have very little content and what they do have posted is around a year old. The videos contained some information on specific pets, but nothing about the operation. They were not getting much traffic for the videos either.
The recommendations that I would have for them is to expand on the YouTube coverage. Get more active content available for both the pets and the operations. The videos could be easily linked to from the Facebook feed that is already successful. The attachment that a person can have over video would seem greater than that of a picture. By gaining the attachment for specific pets, they could create greater adoption rates.
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
Measurement Plan for Nonprofit
I will be identifying a measurement plan for the Capital Area Humane Society (CAHS). This organization runs a local animal shelter and places animals in approved homes.
The first step in the process is to identify the mission of the organization. The CAHS states their mission statement as:
The next step is to identify the audiences or stakeholders to the CAHS, then to prioritize them. For the CAHS the audience can be focused on several groups. From the most to least important are: Individuals that shop at pet stores are visit the zoo, also known as animal lovers. Area families with children, this will target the education group.
To establish a benchmark of success or failure the CAHS should be comparing the adoption rates and attitudes of the community compared to similarly sized cities. Surrounding cities should also be compared to account for geographic reasons, but the similar cities will be important as well even if not local.
The metric that should be chosen for the mission would be an adoption ratio of those animals that are successfully adopted compared to the number that are either euthanized or moved to other shelters. The metric for the education of ethical care would be the results of a survey that gets opinions on topics of dog fighting, what constitutes neglect, or proper care for animals. Other media coverage could also give insight on this.
By measuring the change in perception from before and after a given time period results can be analyzed. Changes can then be made to counter the results found. After the changes are completed another round of analysis should be done to confirm gains or losses.
Capital Area Humane Society, http://www.cahs-lansing.org/index.php/about
The first step in the process is to identify the mission of the organization. The CAHS states their mission statement as:
"At the Capital Area Humane Society, we are passionate about animals. Our mission is to promote the humane treatment of companion animals through protection, placement, education and example. Our wide variety of programs and services exist to serve the animals and the people of the mid-Michigan community."The objectives are then to take measurements that will identify promotion of humane treatment of animals and the placement of abandoned animals. To accomplish this, the rate of incoming animals can be compared to successfully placed animals. Another measurement could be the education level of ethical animal treatment to animals done through a survey.
The next step is to identify the audiences or stakeholders to the CAHS, then to prioritize them. For the CAHS the audience can be focused on several groups. From the most to least important are: Individuals that shop at pet stores are visit the zoo, also known as animal lovers. Area families with children, this will target the education group.
To establish a benchmark of success or failure the CAHS should be comparing the adoption rates and attitudes of the community compared to similarly sized cities. Surrounding cities should also be compared to account for geographic reasons, but the similar cities will be important as well even if not local.
The metric that should be chosen for the mission would be an adoption ratio of those animals that are successfully adopted compared to the number that are either euthanized or moved to other shelters. The metric for the education of ethical care would be the results of a survey that gets opinions on topics of dog fighting, what constitutes neglect, or proper care for animals. Other media coverage could also give insight on this.
By measuring the change in perception from before and after a given time period results can be analyzed. Changes can then be made to counter the results found. After the changes are completed another round of analysis should be done to confirm gains or losses.
Capital Area Humane Society, http://www.cahs-lansing.org/index.php/about
Saturday, November 24, 2012
PR Crisis Discussion
In a blog post, discuss a company that had a PR crisis. What was the
crisis and how did they handle it? How could they have measured their
communications effectiveness during and after the crisis? What could
they have done differently?
The crisis in question was caused by a Bank of America decision to charge $5 per transaction when using a debit card. The decision was made in an effort to raise revenue after the banking issues in 2008. The changes were not unique for the industry but new for a large institution. The push back from the general public was greater than anticipated. The discussions went viral and were transmitted with only half truths.
The discussions on the issue needed to to be monitored more closely during the initial announcements. The company appeared to be unprepared for the lash back from the public and wasn't monitoring or addressing the issue until it got out of hand.
Ultimately they changed course and decided to not implement the fees after the bad publicity dragged on for over a month. If the end result was generate more revenue through the process they should have been been more interactive with customers to address their concerns. By getting to the news agencies and trying to better explain the situation immediately the negative discussion wouldn't have went viral.
The crisis in question was caused by a Bank of America decision to charge $5 per transaction when using a debit card. The decision was made in an effort to raise revenue after the banking issues in 2008. The changes were not unique for the industry but new for a large institution. The push back from the general public was greater than anticipated. The discussions went viral and were transmitted with only half truths.
The discussions on the issue needed to to be monitored more closely during the initial announcements. The company appeared to be unprepared for the lash back from the public and wasn't monitoring or addressing the issue until it got out of hand.
Ultimately they changed course and decided to not implement the fees after the bad publicity dragged on for over a month. If the end result was generate more revenue through the process they should have been been more interactive with customers to address their concerns. By getting to the news agencies and trying to better explain the situation immediately the negative discussion wouldn't have went viral.
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
Multichannel Campaign Analysis
I feel like the marketing of GM currently is misguided. From what I can
find they don't have much in the way of tracking the conversions of many
of their marketing investments. This is being manifested in them
looking for their fifth marketing chief in just over 3 years.
Some tracking that they have done compared the number of people looking to purchase Chevy cars on the edmunds.com web site and compared it to the newest marking campaign. Unfortunately for them the potential sales has fallen from the beginning of the campaign.
Other tracking that they have done in the past was with their paid Facebook ads. They were tracking the number of clicks vs cost. This was a lost cause as well and they have since changed direction.
One opportunity that GM has is to track custom car builds on their brand sites and seeing if they result in purchases. By using specific codes on the custom build they would be able to track an online shopper with the purchase in a dealership.
Some tracking that they have done compared the number of people looking to purchase Chevy cars on the edmunds.com web site and compared it to the newest marking campaign. Unfortunately for them the potential sales has fallen from the beginning of the campaign.
Other tracking that they have done in the past was with their paid Facebook ads. They were tracking the number of clicks vs cost. This was a lost cause as well and they have since changed direction.
One opportunity that GM has is to track custom car builds on their brand sites and seeing if they result in purchases. By using specific codes on the custom build they would be able to track an online shopper with the purchase in a dealership.
Krisher, T. (2012, July 31). Gm's ads aren't getting the job done. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/01/joel-ewanick-gm-ads_n_1727859.html
Long-Tail Search Strategies
When looking at the below search budget distribution it is similar to what I would expect. There is little search engine money being dedicated to the brand specific keywords. These keywords will direct traffic anyway since they are more highly tied to our brand.
The tail key phrases are receiving a larger portion of the budget since the keywords would not normally generate traffic to the site. By purchasing ad placement for these keywords I would expect the traffic from them to come from those advertisements and not organically.
As a recommendation I would think that they may want to try to get a better ratio of hits from their Head key phrases. If their top performing key words are only producing 33% of traffic they may need to work more on both ads and organic search traffic to better identify high performing keywords.
The tail key phrases are receiving a larger portion of the budget since the keywords would not normally generate traffic to the site. By purchasing ad placement for these keywords I would expect the traffic from them to come from those advertisements and not organically.
As a recommendation I would think that they may want to try to get a better ratio of hits from their Head key phrases. If their top performing key words are only producing 33% of traffic they may need to work more on both ads and organic search traffic to better identify high performing keywords.
Path analysis
I agree that path analysis can get cloudy very quickly. Depending on what the target of the data is will ultimately determine if the process is worth it.
I think trying to guide your visitors through an optimal set of screens is noble it is also unreasonable. To use path analysis to try to optimize your site for a specific path is not worth it. You would be trying to optimize your site for a small percentage of users since you would never get all users to use it the same. It is more useful to use path analysis to group page areas to see where users bounce between. This could be in grouping all product pages, support pages, checkout, and other pages. Then you can see if product pages are leading to checkout or if users are reviewing support documents before making the final purchase. This way you can see more how the users are using the site instead of getting bogged down in specifics.
When looking at this for GM this path analysis could be quite difficult. Most of the site is available from sub menus and a user cold bounce around the site without taking any determinant path. Since there isn't much in product information and nothing about purchasing vehicles directly from the GM site the tracking would be more directed to see what drove a user to go to a brand site. The best path analysis that could be use would be in seeing if a redirection from the GM site ultimately resulted in a purchase decision. GM would need to decide if they are trying to use GM.com as a landing page or for a more corporate direction (that I believe they have).
I think trying to guide your visitors through an optimal set of screens is noble it is also unreasonable. To use path analysis to try to optimize your site for a specific path is not worth it. You would be trying to optimize your site for a small percentage of users since you would never get all users to use it the same. It is more useful to use path analysis to group page areas to see where users bounce between. This could be in grouping all product pages, support pages, checkout, and other pages. Then you can see if product pages are leading to checkout or if users are reviewing support documents before making the final purchase. This way you can see more how the users are using the site instead of getting bogged down in specifics.
When looking at this for GM this path analysis could be quite difficult. Most of the site is available from sub menus and a user cold bounce around the site without taking any determinant path. Since there isn't much in product information and nothing about purchasing vehicles directly from the GM site the tracking would be more directed to see what drove a user to go to a brand site. The best path analysis that could be use would be in seeing if a redirection from the GM site ultimately resulted in a purchase decision. GM would need to decide if they are trying to use GM.com as a landing page or for a more corporate direction (that I believe they have).
Context is Queen
Below you will see a hypothetical report on search traffic for my site. There are several things that need to be done to make the information useful.
The report shows 6 months worth of data for visits to the site. As the report sits there is little to see other than there is a weekly dip and that traffic is consistent. Unfortunately it is hard to tell if this is good or bad. A comparison to competitors or a year to year comparison would make this more effective. Without a context it is hard to tell if this weekly trend is good or bad. The competitors may not see this same type of traffic difference which could lead us to try to find solutions for the weekend dips such as add new content or offer weekend exclusive sales.
Friday, November 9, 2012
Building an Action Dashboard
Creating an action dashboard for GM would including KPI metrics for those users that continued through to the specific brand site vs those that exited on the brand landing page.
The first quadrant would show the the trends in traffic comparing each of the brands and their conversion rate to the brand specific site. This would give a comparison and show if there was a particular brand that was having issues getting traffic to complete.
The second quadrant could show the trends over time for each of the brands. This allows them to identify any changes that were made compared to successes.
The third quadrant would summarize the changes that have been made with dates as well as future changes for consideration. The consideration list should also outline proposed dates of action. The changes could identify specific holiday times or beginning of summer when people are more likely to be buying cars.
The fourth quadrant can give summary information of goals that changes should have on the site. This would tie the proposed changes to outcomes.
The first quadrant would show the the trends in traffic comparing each of the brands and their conversion rate to the brand specific site. This would give a comparison and show if there was a particular brand that was having issues getting traffic to complete.
The second quadrant could show the trends over time for each of the brands. This allows them to identify any changes that were made compared to successes.
The third quadrant would summarize the changes that have been made with dates as well as future changes for consideration. The consideration list should also outline proposed dates of action. The changes could identify specific holiday times or beginning of summer when people are more likely to be buying cars.
The fourth quadrant can give summary information of goals that changes should have on the site. This would tie the proposed changes to outcomes.
Measuring Influence with Employees
Choose a company that is using social media effectively to communicate with their employees, explain in a blog post:
The company that I have done most of my discussions on is General Motors. While I didn't necessarily find anything directly relating GM to social media and influencing employees I did find some good information on the UAW.
The UAW has taken to social media to keep their members informed of progress during each of their contract negotiations. "During the Big Three negotiations, the UAW brought instantaneous communication to its members through social media using Facebook, Twitter, robo calls, secure websites for members and e-wire messages letting them know what’s been going on behind-the-scenes and in real time." (Pietro, 2011)
By using the social media they were able to blanket their membership with information much quicker and more accurately than they could previously. Social media also allowed them to get feedback from the membership as well that wasn't possible before. The member base was very supportive to those that were in the negotiations giving them more confidence to get a better contract.
In the future the UAW will need to be diligent as to what gets posted on their social media outlets, especially during negotiations. While they are adamant that they want to be transparent with their employees, the new agencies are also picking up that information which could be misconstrued.
Pietro, D. (2011). Never has bargaining been this transparent. Retrieved from http://www.uaw.org/story/never-has-bargaining-been-transparent
The company that I have done most of my discussions on is General Motors. While I didn't necessarily find anything directly relating GM to social media and influencing employees I did find some good information on the UAW.
The UAW has taken to social media to keep their members informed of progress during each of their contract negotiations. "During the Big Three negotiations, the UAW brought instantaneous communication to its members through social media using Facebook, Twitter, robo calls, secure websites for members and e-wire messages letting them know what’s been going on behind-the-scenes and in real time." (Pietro, 2011)
By using the social media they were able to blanket their membership with information much quicker and more accurately than they could previously. Social media also allowed them to get feedback from the membership as well that wasn't possible before. The member base was very supportive to those that were in the negotiations giving them more confidence to get a better contract.
In the future the UAW will need to be diligent as to what gets posted on their social media outlets, especially during negotiations. While they are adamant that they want to be transparent with their employees, the new agencies are also picking up that information which could be misconstrued.
Pietro, D. (2011). Never has bargaining been this transparent. Retrieved from http://www.uaw.org/story/never-has-bargaining-been-transparent
Behavioral Targeting & Predictive Analytics
For your company, explain in a blog post:
- How could your company use behavioral targeting to improve their customer experience?
- How could your company use predictive analytics to improve their customer experience?
Monday, November 5, 2012
Measurement Best Practices
In reviewing the best practices guide that Avinash Kaushik published on the site HERE, there was a list of nine items that should be kept in mind when implementing tracking.
The items listed are:
# 1: Tag all your pages.
# 2: Tags go last (customers come first :).
# 3: Tags should be inline.
# 4: What’s your unique page definition?
# 5: Use cookies intelligently (they are delicious).
# 6: Javascript wrapped links might be a issue.
# 7: Redirects, be aware of them.
# 8: Validate data is being captured correctly.
# 9: Don’t forget Flash, Flex, RIA, RSS, Videos etc.
Using these rules and applying them to the GM web site there are several difficulties I can see. For the most part the GM web site is entirely Javascript based or Flash. For them to track the site traffic they would need to make sure that they implement a custom tracking of either event logs or use custom tags.
However in reviewing the source code of the page they are in fact utilizing a Javascript as they should at the bottom of the page, just before the </body> tag.
(<script type="text/javascript" src="/etc/designs/gmcom/js/gPageTracking.js"></script>)
There is also some custom tracking built in to the page that is created from a tracking XML file.
From what I can tell in the source all of the items are accounted for. They are tracking the traffic as they should be.
The items listed are:
# 1: Tag all your pages.
# 2: Tags go last (customers come first :).
# 3: Tags should be inline.
# 4: What’s your unique page definition?
# 5: Use cookies intelligently (they are delicious).
# 6: Javascript wrapped links might be a issue.
# 7: Redirects, be aware of them.
# 8: Validate data is being captured correctly.
# 9: Don’t forget Flash, Flex, RIA, RSS, Videos etc.
Using these rules and applying them to the GM web site there are several difficulties I can see. For the most part the GM web site is entirely Javascript based or Flash. For them to track the site traffic they would need to make sure that they implement a custom tracking of either event logs or use custom tags.
However in reviewing the source code of the page they are in fact utilizing a Javascript as they should at the bottom of the page, just before the </body> tag.
(<script type="text/javascript" src="/etc/designs/gmcom/js/gPageTracking.js"></script>)
There is also some custom tracking built in to the page that is created from a tracking XML file.
From what I can tell in the source all of the items are accounted for. They are tracking the traffic as they should be.
Sunday, November 4, 2012
Twitter Measurement
I chose to review the GM twitter account. The posts that I reviewed all seemed very corporate oriented and not much pizzazz. The discussion focused around sales numbers, corporate money, and executive positions. While this is not relevant for the majority of the public this is consistent with who would be following the auto maker. For those that are more of a car enthusiast they would follow a particular brands feed instead.
Using TwitterCounter, comparison of GM to Ford and Chrysler, GM has grown from nearly 63,000 followers to almost 73,000 followers in the last 3 months. Meanwhile Ford has grown from 144,000 to 166,000 and Chrysler has grown from 37,000 to 43,000. All three of the companies have made growth in the three months and the numbers are to be expected. While the Ford blog is larger, they have brand loyal followers that GM would only have on their Chevy, Cadillac, or Buick brands.
To compare the retweet and message amplification I used Retweetrank and found that GM is ranked 63,59 while Ford and Chrysler are ranked 111,141 and 35,056 respectively. I wan't clear as to how the ranking was calculated but it seemed odd that GM and Chrysler would be higher ranked than Ford unless the number of followers was calculated into the equation.
Using TwitterCounter, comparison of GM to Ford and Chrysler, GM has grown from nearly 63,000 followers to almost 73,000 followers in the last 3 months. Meanwhile Ford has grown from 144,000 to 166,000 and Chrysler has grown from 37,000 to 43,000. All three of the companies have made growth in the three months and the numbers are to be expected. While the Ford blog is larger, they have brand loyal followers that GM would only have on their Chevy, Cadillac, or Buick brands.
To compare the retweet and message amplification I used Retweetrank and found that GM is ranked 63,59 while Ford and Chrysler are ranked 111,141 and 35,056 respectively. I wan't clear as to how the ranking was calculated but it seemed odd that GM and Chrysler would be higher ranked than Ford unless the number of followers was calculated into the equation.
Blog Measurement
I reviewed the GM Fastlane blog http://fastlane.gmblogs.com for a review of the content created and its conversion rate, and authority rating.
The first calculation is the Raw Author Contribution of Posts per Month. I reviewed the last two months of content on the site to get a number of posts created. This number is 22 posts of new content, they we divide this by the number of months counted (2). This calculation generates a RAC of 11 posts/month.
The next calculation is the Conversation Rate. This is calculated by visitor comments divided by the number of posts. I reviewed the 22 posts that were made in the last 2 months and counted each of the replies to those posts. The number of comments was also 22, this calculates out to a coincidental rate of 1. (22 comments/22 posts). Some of the posts had 4-5 replies, while others had zero replies.
The last item was to find the Authority rating for the blog using Technorati. I did several searches and browsed the listings but couldn't fine this blog listed. This leads me to believe that it is a lesser recognized blog and has a lower authority.
They may want to analyze the cost effectiveness of this particular blog. They first would need to calculate the cost of the actual blogging (time to post, research, hosting, etc) then compare to what they are benefiting from it. The traffic may be better suited to redirect to another of the GM blog sites or to try and increase the exposure to try and make this one relevant. Such steps might include having links directly from the home page, or to link to it from another high profile location.
The first calculation is the Raw Author Contribution of Posts per Month. I reviewed the last two months of content on the site to get a number of posts created. This number is 22 posts of new content, they we divide this by the number of months counted (2). This calculation generates a RAC of 11 posts/month.
The next calculation is the Conversation Rate. This is calculated by visitor comments divided by the number of posts. I reviewed the 22 posts that were made in the last 2 months and counted each of the replies to those posts. The number of comments was also 22, this calculates out to a coincidental rate of 1. (22 comments/22 posts). Some of the posts had 4-5 replies, while others had zero replies.
The last item was to find the Authority rating for the blog using Technorati. I did several searches and browsed the listings but couldn't fine this blog listed. This leads me to believe that it is a lesser recognized blog and has a lower authority.
They may want to analyze the cost effectiveness of this particular blog. They first would need to calculate the cost of the actual blogging (time to post, research, hosting, etc) then compare to what they are benefiting from it. The traffic may be better suited to redirect to another of the GM blog sites or to try and increase the exposure to try and make this one relevant. Such steps might include having links directly from the home page, or to link to it from another high profile location.
Friday, November 2, 2012
Mobile Measurement
When a mobile user tries to use the GM web site they are most likely not going to be looking for the same information as the desktop user. When a user is connecting from a mobile browser they will be likely looking for a specific piece of information. They may be looking up certain model features or pricing. When you are on a desktop a person is more likely to be doing more in depth research and looking into the company.
The mobile experience on GM.com is quite poor from what I could tell on my phone. The main site is jazzed up with a flash experience that doesn't work very well on mobile devices.
To measure the mobile experience on their site they can get a browser breakdown of the pages viewed by mobile browsers. This can show the areas that are trying to be used by mobile users.
I would suggest that GM redesign the mobile site to simplify the menus so that it is more user friendly. They should shrink the layout to fit on smaller screens easier. Some of the images need to be resized as well to better fit the screens as well. Once they perform analysis they can also put some of the more common requested pages put on the home screen as well.
The mobile experience on GM.com is quite poor from what I could tell on my phone. The main site is jazzed up with a flash experience that doesn't work very well on mobile devices.
To measure the mobile experience on their site they can get a browser breakdown of the pages viewed by mobile browsers. This can show the areas that are trying to be used by mobile users.
I would suggest that GM redesign the mobile site to simplify the menus so that it is more user friendly. They should shrink the layout to fit on smaller screens easier. Some of the images need to be resized as well to better fit the screens as well. Once they perform analysis they can also put some of the more common requested pages put on the home screen as well.
Content Consumption
Over the last 5 years the content that I consume has changed somewhat. In the past I mostly read static pages on the web or occasionally listened to books on tape. Now that the web has become more robust and the speed of connections, especially remotely, has sped up find that I watch more videos or use interactive sites.
I have never been one to read many of the traditional medias such as magazines or newspapers. The amount that I read physical media has become even more scarce. I find that most of the physical media is out dated compared to the web content. I also don't like having to carry with me a dedicated piece of media when I could read it on my laptop or mobile device that I already carry for other reasons.
Most of the content that I read is on my laptop but I do have a tablet and a smartphone that get used on occasion. I find my laptop to be the most convenient for reading. My tablet isn't usually with me and my phone is a bit small to read much on.
I have never been one to read many of the traditional medias such as magazines or newspapers. The amount that I read physical media has become even more scarce. I find that most of the physical media is out dated compared to the web content. I also don't like having to carry with me a dedicated piece of media when I could read it on my laptop or mobile device that I already carry for other reasons.
Most of the content that I read is on my laptop but I do have a tablet and a smartphone that get used on occasion. I find my laptop to be the most convenient for reading. My tablet isn't usually with me and my phone is a bit small to read much on.
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