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.

Measuring the Gaze For Ads-in-Program. An Interview with Samuel Huber of admix.in

Monetizing content has at once become easier and far more complicated with new technologies enabling insertions pre, mid, post and within programming. With the advent of AR and VR, the options have widened further. Enter, Samuel Huber, Founder and CEO, Admix who has been grappling with, as he explained, “the struggles of creating and monetizing content” for many years. 

He noted that there was, “not much choice, besides banners at the bottom of the screen. When I discovered VR for the first time, I immediately thought we could do better than that, because the environment is not limited to a small screen anymore.” 

Charlene Weisler: Give me a short description of your company - is it only for the AR and VR space?

Samuel Huber: Admix is the first monetzsation platform for XR, helping over 200 VR/AR developers like High Fidelity, Somnium Space or Atom Universe, monetize their content through non-intrusive advertising. Through a free plugin for Unity, developers can create inventory within their app (a banner on a wall, a screen, or a 3D item on a table), filter the advertisers they want, to ensure ads are relevant to the content. That way, the ads will never interrupt the users, because they are in line with the content. Because we integrate with Unity, any 3D content can use Admix, not just VR/AR - we are integrating with Atom Universe which is a PS4 title. We are the first company to build the infrastructure to distribute XR ads programmatically, meaning automated and at scale. We are building new standards together with Yahoo, AOL and other demand partners, giving their advertisers the ability to access VR/AR media for the very first time.

Weisler: What technology do you use to implant ads? 

Huber: Admix is a supply side platform (SSP) built in house and selling inventory to 3rd party demand side platforms, such as Brightroll (Yahoo/AOL ). We then use our own renderer to display the ads in a 3D environment. 

Weisler: Are they static?

Huber: We have 3 ad formats - banner, video and 3D. Banner and videos are existing formats used by advertisers. The 3D format is a new format we are pioneering with our demand partners and that will be interactive and enable new interactions between brands and consumers.

Weisler: How are the ads measured? What data do you use and how do you integrate it into the buy/sell?

Huber: Being programmatic, we capture contextual data (about the environment) and gaze tracking data (where the users are looking) to calculate viewability. Gaze tracking data is anonymized and used in aggregate, to understand how people consume a specific ad, how long they spend gazing at it, which is used to qualify the impact of the ad in a much more granular way than possible on the web. ‘Impressions’ are not binary anymore, but on a continuous spectrum, giving advertisers a lot more insights. In the future, we aim to define a Cost per Gaze model, which will charge advertisers differently based on the interaction level with a specific ad. We can then feed that information back to advertisers, to give them more insights on the profile of the person interacting with their ads.

Weisler: Are you working with any media measurement companies and if so who?

Huber: The answer is not yet, we are having discussions with 3rd party measurement companies but no integration yet. To popularize the gaze tracking metric, we are working together with Oath building these standards so will aim to make it a standards with existing players first.

Weisler: Is there a thought to integrate with other media platforms and if so what?

Huber: We are currently integrating with various DSPs to give us access to more advertisers.

Weisler: What do you see as the future of advertising 3 years from now?

Huber: I believe that XR will profoundly improve advertising for the better, by bringing it at the center of the creative process and giving developers the ability to control the experience. VR and AR give advertisers a lot more freedom to be creative. In particular, product placements, which do not interrupt and are relevant to the story, are going to replace banners, pre rolls and popups. From a financial point of view, because they do not interrupt, you can imagine having 50 product placements per app, as opposed to 1 pre roll when the app loads, meaning more revenue for the developers, and more brand recognition for the advertisers! For the first time, interests of the consumers, the developers and the publishers are aligned. This is the future that we see at Admix, and are working on building!

This article first appeared in www.Mediapost.com

Oath Drives Insights into both the Consumer and the Advertiser

Better data-driven audience research is enabling deeper insights into consumer motivations, behaviors and actions for brands. 

A good example is what Oath is accomplishing through its premium video content and experiences, creating better understanding of the trends driving video consumption and growth across new formats. This valuable information can then be used to drive a brand’s strategy. “We know that successful brands grow by anticipating the needs of consumers in a constantly changing marketplace”, noted Maya Abinakad, Senior Marketing Manager, Oath. “The market landscape is evolving at a pace unlike anything we’ve seen before,” she added, “especially in the areas of AR, VR and 360, for example.”

As marketers try to keep up, the question on the minds of many industry leaders is: Do you have your finger on the pulse of the consumer? Are your current investments in an under-appreciated consumer technology well placed for future success or destined for a flop? Brands need to understand consumer expectations and the threshold for advertising or risk wasting valuable dollars and development time. Parsing the opportunities and pitfalls is the direction that AOL Video research is taking with their latest State of Video Industry online study in partnership with InsightsNow.

Abinakad believes that the best research uncovers the human motivations that drive consumer behavior, maybe even revealing results that upend the established order. “When you don’t question established order, it can lead to short-term results,” she stated. “Company leaders may believe and invest in something that may not be of great interest to consumers. This research is pivotal to keeping up (and ahead of) quickly changing consumer trends to maximize business opportunities and plan for the future,” she added.

The study focused on consumers age 16+ and B2B constituents, including industry buyers (agencies and brands) and sellers (publishers, ad networks and ad tech providers). The results revealed macro trends in the video ecosystem and where attitudes between consumers and companies merged and diverged. But Oath’s main purpose in this study is to deeply understand how and why consumers are engaging with video online and the importance of acting on insights as part of one’s video strategies, especially given how quickly the industry is evolving.

Here are the major takeaways:

      1.       Digital video investments show no signs of slowing down. B2B trends indicate greater spending on video which is increasing exponentially. 83% of buyers are expecting to increase their video spending this year.  

      2.       Dollars are coming out of television. This investment is coming out of Broadcast/Cable TV budgets and into predominantly desktop (72%) and mobile video (71%) platforms.

      3.       Social (50%) and quality creative (46%) are driving video’s growth.

      4.       But 44% of advertisers say measurement is still a big challenge, a +14% increase from last year.

      5.       Consumers want VR, 360 video and AR, especially younger consumers. Across all age groups, consumers are drawn to live videos as advertisers are increasingly investing in 360 Video.

      6.       Mobile video is driving much of digital video’s growth as 67% of all consumers watch videos on their phones everyday with 74% watching live video.   

      7.       Offering greater competition to linear networks, news, music and sports content dominate live video consumption.

      8.       VR is poised to become as common as mobile video among consumers for all types of programming such as movies, virtual tourism, science and shopping. But hardware constraints are currently seen as a barrier to fuller roll-out.

      9.       Consumers expect video advertising but the “right” length of the ad is important and it varies. Of course, who doesn’t prefer shorter ads, but the findings here indicate that expectations vary according to the length of the ad. The longer the video, the longer the expected ad. But the ad must be relevant and with some control still maintained by the viewer such as skipping and fast forward.

     10.   Programmatic spending will continue to rise, but both buyers and sellers are concerned about system integration and the ability to access premium inventory.

     11.   Branded video spend has reached its peak. Although branded video is still a revenue driver, the spend is slightly declining because of measurement challenges and cost.

Oath’s collection of more than global media and technology brands ranges from AOL and Yahoo to  HuffPost and TechCrunch. Their redoubled focus is on delivering content and ads across mobile platforms so research necessarily plays a big role in this effort. Understanding the accelerating trends in media and placing efforts in those trends are essential for their future success as well as their advertisers. 

Since their mission is to “build brands that people love,” noted Abinakad, “And, marketers are focused on delivering the highest consumer experience possible, then having and offering relevant, insightful research results will help Oath reach that goal. All of our products and services are designed to allow brands to build their brands, and allow agencies to do the same for client brands.”  

This article first appeared in www.MediaVillage.com

The Future of Television May Only Be One Screen

You know that the definition of television is changing when a Future of Television conference is hosted by a company called Digital Media Wire. This event was part of the NY Games conference indicating to me that all content, no matter how it is delivered and used by the consumer, is part of the new and complex television ecosystem.

What is television today? I have explored this question in previous articles. But the Future of Television conference further expanded the definition in terms of content, distribution, monetization and venue viewing opportunities. The big takeaway for me was that television seems to have finally crossed the digital Rubicon, transitioning from the “delivery box” to a veritable state of mind, a programming option where no screen is primary. What is television today and what are the challenges to the current business model? Here are my ten top takeaways, not in any particular order:

1.   Marked Generational Differences in Television Usage

For Time Warner’s Joan Gilman, the definition of television has two answers - a professional and a personal one. At work it is program content – the creative. At home with her kids it is hardware based where they spend less time on the primary household screen but consume large amounts of content on second screens.

2.  Don’t Talk About the “Second Screen”. There is only One Screen

Among Millennials, the first screen of choice may not be the television set. It might be the tablet or mobile. Is there really a “second screen” anymore? Isn’t just “The Screen”? For Meredith’s Laura Rowley, her kids say that all you need for television is wifi. And according to Craig Palmer of Wikia, “If you use the second screen it is the first screen for you.”

3. More Programming Sources Expand Consumption - Time is Flexible and Expandable

Will there be more competition for viewers’ time as all of this new content – from Netflix, Yahoo, AOL, YouTube and other sources – needs to fit within the time that the average viewer allots for television entertainment? Not necessarily. “Video is invading other spheres of life.” Says Rowley. “Our site All Recipes .. can be downloaded via mobile in the grocery store. So we are expanding the hours used for entertainment. We offer a solution for consumers and insert a video in their day that didn't have a video before. In this way we are redefining TV with consumers consuming video in new places and in new ways.” 

4. Measurement is (Still) the Big Challenge

No matter how you define television, new sources of content make no impact unless you can measure it all properly and completely. Measurement has not kept up with the way content is being delivered and the concept of rating may not be as relevant today as it was in previous years. CPM may be less of an issue if they measure actual behavior in terms of reach and frequency. Anthony Wood of Roku explained that there are many sources of viewership that is not currently measured by Nielsen including Hulu Plus. How can you monetize it if you can’t measure it? A big step forward is asset identification coding that facilitates automatic content recognition across all screens. But it is still in process with no industry standard as of yet.

Joan Gillman of TWC talks about measurement:
 

5. The Borders May Soon Be Shifting

While the virtual MSO may still be in development, it does have the potential to upend the business model and change the viewing landscape. Think of TV without Borders.

6. Storytelling Trumps Technology But Give Technology It’s Due

Even with all the new and ever expanding range of viewing platforms, nothing is as important as being able to offer great and compelling content, as long as it is in context. Shane Rahmani of Electus says that the core of success is great storytelling but “what works on linear might not work on YouTube and it should be form factor appropriate.”

7. New Programming (and Advertising) Experimentations

Nick Demartino of Theatrics summed it up. “We are at the beginning of an unprecedented time of programming experimentation. We are evolving from the tyranny of the 22 minute sitcom.” But predicting the end of the 22 minute sitcom and 30 a second spot may be premature. Much of it is predicated on specific content. Some formats are better for digital and can be adapted from linear. Rich Cusick of Yahoo offered this insight: “Buzzy moments have resonance and can be inexpensive to produce. We took a (longer) program segment and found users only wanted to viewed the buzzy moments that they cared about. We edited it down to 3 minutes and increased viewing.”

8. But Old Programming Has a Great Value Too

Magisto’s Reid Genauer spoke of “decades worth of content with no place to live today.” In his company, they are experimenting to bring that content back into the social dialogue. He says, “Our videos get the same number of views per month as an episode of Breaking Bad.”

Shane Rahmani (Electus) and Rich Cusick (Yahoo) talk about the Impact of Data on Content

9. TV Everywhere is A Temporary Advantage for MSOs, At Best

When asked if TVE is working for MSOs, Steve Ronson of A+E equivocated. I would answer that question as, “it depends, not so much and maybe. It may help MVPDs to some extent but the problem is in its execution.” Karen Cahn of AOL called TVE “A band aid solution” since consumers want content and don’t really care about the delivery provider. But Craig Palmer of Wikia feels that the “traditional model will go away since kids don’t feel the need to be subscribers.” And what about delivery via IPTV?

10. Celebrity Participation Helps Drive Appeal

It was agreed that celebrity involvement helps in attracting audience and attention. But while celebrity participation helps drive content, the definition of celebrity is fungible. AOL’s Cahn said, “Influencers don't have to be a household name but they can influence popularity.”  Will everyone be able to get their 15 minutes of fame more easily?