Social Media Mapping: The Story Behind the Data

There are many tools available for ascertaining the Who, What and Where of social media, often in the form of a data dump. 

But according to Michael Lieberman, Founder, Multivariate Solutions, companies like Twitter offer data visualization maps that more clearly define all of the attributes of a campaign, hashtag, meme, site or other social phenomena and reveal the story behind the data structure.

Twitter, Google, Yahoo, WhatsApp and Facebook passively cull our personal information via a negative default – that is, requiring the user to opt-out rather than request them to opt-in. This leaves them with a treasure trove of our personal information.

“Social media maps help us visualize the patterns of connection that form when people follow, reply and mention one another in internet communication services like Twitter,” Lieberman explained. The web-like look of these maps show the nature of the conversation whether they are divided, unified, fragmented or clustered.

The use of mapping reveals four types of centrality measures – Degree (how popular), Betweenness (the amount of influence), Closeness (the ability to spread information efficiently) and Eigenvector (how importantly connected) that provide context to social media flow that shows key players and influencers.

According to Lieberman, there are six kinds of Twitter social network maps ——

1-Polarized Map – Using the Egyptian uprising as an example, this map shows two opposing opinions; Feminism and the Uprising (which may not support feminism). Polarized social media discussions have different, often opposing, hashtags.

2-In Groups/Community Map – For a hashtag like #cx (customer experience), these maps show conversations that all use the same or similar hashtags. This indicates the conversation around your hashtag and the penetration of its popularity based on the number of tweets.

3-Bazaar Map – Using @hillaryclinton as an example, the map displays several independent user clusters on many different topics which are not necessarily related to each other.

4-Brand Map – Showcases a public topic such as Disney cruises #disneycruises. These maps show a lot of different groups and hashtags that show what the conversation is around a subject.

5-Broadcast Map – Using @madmagazine or @CNN as an example, these maps show one large group that is essentially talking about same thing. It summarizes what is being shown in the Twitter feed, often stories of the day.

6- Support Maps – Are often corporate maps such as help@dell which has a single originating source that connects directly to many different individual participants.

“The use of a relatively easy analysis such as Social Network Analysis makes understanding the Twitter or Wikipedia conversation far easier than massive social listening platforms,” concluded Lieberman.

This article first appeared in Cynopsis.

Advertising Week Launches With a Focus on Diversity and Inclusion

Advertising week is always a dizzying array of too many interesting panel choices. It is always difficult to choose - do I go to Data? Programmatic? Creative? Content? This year I began with the Talent and Empowering Women tracks that explored both the challenges and the personal triumphs that still need to be navigated through conscious and unconscious biases.

The Transgender Journey

Chris Edwards' emotionally fascinating talk, The Ultimate Rebrand: What We Can Learn From One’s Transgender Journey was of particular interest to me because my cousin is transitioning from male to female. Edwards’ relayed his personal story of navigating through gender identity at a time when it was not only unusual but also misunderstood and mislabeled. "Sexual orientation is who you go to bed with. Gender orientation is who you go to bed as," he explained. Born female, Edwards was able to use his skills as an advertising creative (EVP Group Creative Director at Arnold Worldwide) to "rebrand" himself and become the person he always felt he was.

Using his marketing experience, he decided first to evaluate the landscape. In 1995, the term transgender was not yet in use. The word was transexual which had very negative connotations. Edwards had to navigate through the terminology. The next step was to determine his brand message, which to Edwards was to be open and honest about the transition. Then he sought to develop a solid communication plan by engaging brand evangelists (close friends and business associates) and then, taking into account executional considerations, roll out his "re-branding". His advice was that "We need to acknowledge that we all have prejudices. The best way to help overcome prejudices is to tell your personal story rather than have edicts coming down from the organization. We need to feel empathy."

Diversity Recruitment and Retention

ESPN's panel on achieving diversity offered a good perspective on how to best achieve racial diversity in the corporation. And the issue is not just achieving diversity; It is also retention and inclusion in the workplace. As Marc Strechen, VP Multicultural Marketing at Diageo North America, explained, "We need to develop train and nurture talent. We believe in the freedom to succeed. People are held accountable at Diageo." Jack Myers, Media Ecologist, Chairman MyersBizNet, noted that although there are still big challenges in achieving diversity, there have been some recent inroads. "The recent General Mills announcement that requires all of their agencies' talent pools to reflect their consumers shows that clients can step up and be leaders." His work with the 1stFive.org summer intern event was held at Turner is year and included past interns to help create a sense of community. "Our efforts are focused on retention to keep them in the industry. We find mentors and encourage them to also be mentors to senior people in the industry."

But change cannot bubble up from the bottom. According to Molly West, VP Global Business Operations at ESPN, "If we want a cultural shift in a corporation, we have to do it from the top down." Myers agreed and said, "One of the biggest challenges is that we are talking to ourselves. We need to find ways to get changes at the senior management level. Men need to have zero tolerance for sexist, misogynistic and racist comments in any context, whether it's small private gatherings of men, or in their companies and advertising.”

Women's Empowerment

A subject close to my heart, the two panels I attended on women’s empowerment covered those who are trailblazers such as firefighter Regina Wilson who is the first female president of the Vulcan Society and those who have cracked the glass ceiling such as Geri Wang, President of ABC Sales. Both panels offered personal stories and perspectives on how success can be achieved and what challenges continue to vex.

Despite the advancements made by women in the workplace, we are still a long way from true equality. Women are still underrepresented in C-suite management and on corporate boards. There is still income disparity (Women earn only 79 cents to every dollar a man earns). Women communicate differently than men and this difference often prevents women from being fully included in discussions. Their ideas can be negated until “seconded by a man” as Nadini Ramani, Vice President at Twitter, explained. “Just being a woman changes everything,” she added.

Conclusion

I would like to think that as awareness of the importance of diversity increases in the workplace, we would enter a golden age of inclusion where anyone can go as far as their talents will take them. But I am still unconvinced that this will happen any time soon.

One of my previous employers had many women in leadership positions when I first joined the company but ten years later, a much smaller percentage of women occupy the upper echelons. Check any new start-up in the media field – from programmatic to data to technology - and chances are there will be no African Americans or women either in their C-Suite line positions or on their boards. If we are all truly committed to inclusion, let’s at least retain the diverse talent we have and create more representation on boards. 

This article first appeared in www.MediaBizBloggers.com

The Power of the Crowd According to Twitter

Everyone in media seems to be focused on "The Crowd " whether it is defined as viewers, contributors, visitors or customers. Social media sites rely on crowds to measure the affection of brands and content. Crowd sourcing sites help in all forms of project survival and support. And where would we be without the crowds who help television reach vast as well as niche audiences?

The State of TV Television conference held this week as part of NYC’s Television Week explored the impact of The Crowd on advertising, sports, online, broadcast and cable. Does it shift the business model away from the predictability of what is and what is not "successful" content? And what does successful mean anymore - Ratings? Affection? Acceleration? Does the expansion of platform choices cannibalize or complement media choices? The answer may surprise you.

Twitter is an interesting example. According to Deb Roy, Chief Media Scientist of Twitter, their company harnesses the crowd in a way that multiplies and enhances the impact of live television. "Attention is steered by the visible crowd," Roy explains. "Twitter is live, public and conversational, enabling you to talk in the moment when you want people to hear you." This creates an amplification of engagement the way that human behavior of everyday crowds can sway action. An example: If you have an ever increasing group of people standing on a street looking up, the number of passersby who also stop and look up increases.

In examining user flow data, Roy demonstrated how Twitter is able to amplify the impact of compelling water cooler content by providing a social connective element to the sequential event experience of television. There is a virtual tidal wave of impressions, measurable via Nielsen, that is driven through the Twitter universe in real time during an especially engaging telecast (such as Sports). The resulting engagement metric, Live Reach, provides a cross model communication that bridges TV and Twitter. "People use tweets to talk", he says, "So watching TV without Twitter is like watching TV with the sound off." 

See a video of Roy's explanation here:

   

Twitters audience amplification is not limited to text. It is also possible to embed small video clips to a tweet that highlight a particularly exciting moment in the telecast. This reformatting of content also offers opportunities for in-context pre-roll advertising. So rather than siphoning viewers’ attention, it could be said that Twitter enhances and expands the TV viewing experience by optimizing the potential of the enthusiastic Crowd.

Of course, this is much more effective with live television. Time shifted viewing doesn't spur the synchronistic conversation in the same way or to the same effect. The burden is on the content providers to offer TV content so compelling that must be seen live in-the-moment in order to fully engage in the cultural zeitgeist. Just as comedy is funnier when you can hear other people laughing, there is a multiplier effect to great content that was unmeasurable before social media.

Who would have thought that, even five years ago, the proliferation of platforms and social media applications could enhance and multiply the impact of linear TV? TV is not only thriving, it is expanding in its influence and in its value to advertisers and brands.