Common Craft Blog
Tracking Reactions on the Web
By leelefever on June 03, 2008 - 5:42pm
I must admit that each time we post a new video, we go into buzz mode - What are people saying/linking/doing? Where are they doing it? How many said something? What do we need to say in response?
Watching the reaction is something I anticipate and love about the process. At the same time, I wonder if I'm doing it right. I'm always looking for new ways to scan the web. Here are some tools we use - please suggest ideas/sites/tools that you think would help.
Blog Comments - Of course, our blog is the home of the videos, so we pay close attention to the comments. We've seen the number of comments per video decline in general, which I don't take as a bad sign. Personally, I think people are commenting in other ways, like on Twitter.
Blog Post Views - The views that the blog post receives are certainly a powerful indicator. However, because the video exists on video hosts, these page views are not comprehensive.
Referrers - Our blog software (Drupal) tracks referrers - sites sending traffic our way. This is one way to see the sites from which the most traffic is coming.
Google Analytics - On a high level, this is how we measure the overall impact of the video over time. It's a very powerful tool and we look at a number of the stats, but the big one is impact over time - did the video increase views/visits? For how long? To what degree?
Video Hosts - The views and ratings (and to a lesser degree comments) on the video hosting sites like You Tube and Vimeo are always useful in measuring traction, etc. You Tube has been our vehicle for having the video shared on blogs, though that may soon change.
Technorati Reactions - We have a persistent Technorati search for "commoncraft.com." Whenever someone links their site to Common Craft it (hopefully) shows up in a Technorati search. This gives us a view of who is linking to us, what they're saying and how influential they are. Often, this is how we identify discussions in which we should participate. We use Technorati every day.
Diggs - When a new video is posted, we usually include a button with the video that allows people to Digg it. We've seen this produce amazing results, but only if the video makes it to the "popular" list and the front page. Otherwise, it almost seems like a distraction. You have to be pretty provocative to get the Digg community's attention.
Del.icio.us Bookmarks - Bookmarks are another way we gauge popularity. Like Digg, if the bookmark can make onto the popular list, it can drive more traffic and bookmarks.
RSS Subscribers - This is more of a long range stat. We pay attention to how the number of subscribers changes in the days after the video is posted. This can be powerful conversion metric. If we're doing well, we turn a more and more visitors in subscribers.
Twitter @Replies - Twitter has become our #1 resource for understanding perceptions about our videos. We always announce the videos on Twitter and the @replies are our first look at what people think.
Twitter Search - I don't know what we would do without Summize and/or Tweetscan. We track the search results for "commoncraft " and "plain English " on these services. Often, this reveals how the videos are being spread through Twitter and what people are saying. When we see people asking questions, we do our best to reply to them.
Twitter Subscribers - Did we see more subscribers after the video?
Viral Video Countdown - These days, getting onto the Viral Video Countdown front page is a goal and we look for it with each video. It's one of our consistent, objective ways to see the degree to which the video is being shared on blogs. The Social Media video made it to #2 yesterday. Ice Rocket's Popular Video List is something we check too.
dotSUB translations - We share each of our videos on dotSUB, where they can be translated into multiple languages. We love to see this happen and check in often to how many languages are present.
What else should be using for tracking reactions?
Your website blocked
The California Technology Assistance Project Region 10 uses your videos for our trainings to bring administrators and teachers into this digital age. The problem we are having is trying to access your site to show the videos. Your site is blocked in most of our training areas. We cover San Bernardino, Riverside, Inyo, and Mono counties to do our trainings to bring educators into the "digital age". We have found one of your videos, RSS IPE, that we can access using Teacher Tube but the quality of the video is poor. This comment is just meant to be informational for you. We praise you for what you are doing to help us with our jobs. Most of our clients have heard of the term podcast but when we get to RSS, Twitter, Pownce, Facebook and social networking, we just get puzzled looks. Thanks, again.
you've already covered
you've already covered blogs, but google blog search and google alerts are both good tools.
friendfeed has conversations within it's walls, so that might also be a good place to look.
facebook?
FiltrBox and Yahoo! Pipes
Great post!
I just started using FiltrBox and I have to admit its pretty impressive. I also use a pipe I created: http://pipes.yahoo.com/tannerhobin/socialmediamonitoring
Excellent!
Great post about how to measure post stats and successes! I love how Twitter has become a key player in a role it probably had no idea it was going to play at the beginning.
I refer people to your posts all the time. They are great. I also do productivity tip videos. I love how videos really help people "get" something. I have to admit I haven't used Twitter to announce when I've posted a new video tip. Thanks for the idea!!!
Anyway, great information, as always.
Andrea Kalli
Outlook, SharePoint, and Business Technology Podcast
http://www.productivitypodcast.com
Using Your Videos
This summer we (Ed Tech Teachers in Memphis City Schools) will be using several of your videos to introduce Web 2.0 sessions during our first annual Tech Camp. We LOVE your work - you make concepts so accessible. Thank you for posting the videos on TeacherTube too.
Feedback
It was interesting to read about the different ways you monitor response to your videos. I use them in all of the training I do with teachers in Burleson ISD (Texas) and they are a huge hit! The impact of the "plain English" series on teachers who are just being introduced to the Web 2.0 world is huge and the simplicity with which you help them understand such foreign (to them) concepts is a blessing for those of us trying to help our teachers keep up with their students in this technology driven world. I'm a feed subscriber and now I'll be sure to twitter, etc. to let you know how the teachers respond! You guys rock! Love the new store idea - but I'm waiting for T-shirts to go with the movies....(hint hint, nudge, nudge!)!!! Keep up the awesome work!
Tracking Bookmarks
In addition to Del.icio.us Bookmarks you might also track http://ma.gnolia.com/ - similar concept but prettier ;-) So, I have the sense it's more popular with web designers than Del.ico.us.
You Guys Rock!!
Here is a comment for you. U Rock!!
The things that you are ding are incredible. I am glad that I ran across you guys!
Some tracking tool suggestions
I love your videos and have posted about them on my blog. I use a number of different sites, mostly just to compare analytics. They are feedburner.com, icerocket.com (both owned by google) and sitemeter.com. I just signed up for a beta of woopra which gives you tracking results
Crimson Hexagon
A friend of mine is working with a startup that hopes to address this very problem. In their words, "Crimson Hexagon is a patent pending text reading technology that allows users to define the questions they want to ask, and crawl the blogosphere for fast, accurate answers."
check it out:
http://www.crimsonhexagon.com/
+1 for Summize
I'm always amazed at how useful Summize is, and the live update is nice, too. Good to see it on the list. ( And keep up the great work!)
Tracking
A few that I have recently become aware of and am starting to use are:
popuri.us
urltrends.com
and my favorite socialmeter.com
Definitely at least worth checking out if you never have. Keep up the good work.
The things that you are ding
The things that you are ding are incredible. I am glad that I ran across you guys!
Regards,
Torres
--------------
sohbet cinsel sohbet
Entertainment
I'm sure it can be pure entertainment at its' best watching reactions to some of your posts :-)
Bryan
Public Adjusters
Pure Entertainment
I love your videos and have posted about them on my blog. Keep up the good work.
Bryan
A friend of mine is working
A friend of mine is working with a startup that hopes to address this very problem. In their words, "Crimson Hexagon is a patent pending text reading technology that allows users to define the questions they want to ask, and crawl Sohbet the blogosphere for fast, accurate answers."