Social Media Analytics - Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Wikipedia & LinkedIn

Here is a Short Executive Summary for a Social Media Analytics project I recently did. I measured the composition and level of traffic, including unique monthly visitors, demographics, and much more:

Short Executive Summary
This report is an analysis of social media communities in the 2008 digital landscape. It goes over the process of comparing various online user bases through looking at traffic rankings, user demographics and viewing habits, and other useful rankings that can be used to create a website profile.

The sources used include Alexa.com, Compete.com, Quantcast.com, PageRankTool.net, and various domain registration sites. The websites that were profiled were Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, Wikipedia and LinkedIn. After analyzing data for the five communities, suggestions were given on how to solve the issue of drawing in new users.

Each website has an inherent weakness and needs to cover it up before it negatively affects its growth. The recommendations were that:

• Facebook should market to Hispanics
• MySpace should organize its page views and layouts
• YouTube should create new video-focused features, such as mash-ups and exclusive video series
• Wikipedia should create a news-related list of entries and encourage frequent updates to this list
• LinkedIn should target not only the professionals of the world, but also those on the precipice of starting a career: soon-to-be college graduates

The recommendations should boost the user base of each website without negatively impacting any significant numbers of uses. To thrive in the competitive market of social media websites an organization must continuously innovate to both keep and attract new users. Many additional changes could be made to further improve the entertainment value or usability of each site, but the suggestions laid out appeared to be the most cost- and time- efficient.

Every community has the potential to continue to grow, gathering more and more users and becoming more valuable in the process. This analysis demonstrates the usefulness of understanding a target market and catering to that in new ways. Doing this will ensure not only a healthy community but also a vibrant and profitable one as well.

Sources

Alexa.com. (2008). Retrieved April 26, 2008 from http://www.alexa.com

Census.gov. (2007). Annual Population Data. Retrieved April 26, 2008, from http://www.census.gov/popest/states/NST-ann-est.html

Compete.com (2008). Retrieved April 26, 2008 from http://www.compete.com

PageRankTool.net (2008). Retrieved April 26, 2008 from http://www.pageranktool.net

Quantcast.com (2008). Retrieved April 26, 2008 from http://www.quantcast.com

Whois.Net (2008). Retrieved April 26, 2008 from http://www.whois.net

Regular Postings

Hello everyone! Sorry, but I haven't been posting regularly. I'm going to get on a schedule of posting at least every Mondays and Wednesdays.

Thanks for your patience!

New NewEgg Developments vs. Amazon

To further prove the Competitive Landscape analysis that I performed on NewEgg recently, I just read this post:

http://www.dailytech.com/Newegg+Guns+for+Amazon/article11566.htm

The new NewEgg site is http://www.neweggmall.com and it is in beta at the moment. Currently I don't think it is anywhere near as usable, friendly, or product-rich as Amazon. But NewEgg has been very successful in the consumer electronics segment and they will probably exit their beta phase as a pretty interesting competitor.

Amazon should keep close tabs on NewEggMall as it could potentially shuttle standard NewEgg customers into NewEggMall, purchasing more than just electronics. Here is a breakdown of their strengths/weaknesses. The NewEgg strengths and weaknesses will probably transfer into NewEggMall, although hopefully they will improve their weaknesses.

NewEgg strengths:

• Excellent customer service
• Powerful rating system
• Powerful search function that "homes in" on the item qualities you care about
• Fast 3-day shipping at good prices
  

NewEgg weaknesses:

• Mostly deal in electronics, unproven "non-tech" e-tailing
  
• No auction systems / user selling systems
• **70%+ of revenue comes from repeat high-tech buyers

Amazon strengths:

• Powerful rating system
• User learning with"Personalized Recommendations" after you purchase items
• Large user base
• Free shipping over $25
  

Amazon weaknesses:

• Low margins already, so can't drop prices much lower
• Not all items are sold "in house" and free shipping doesn't apply to everything

An important thing to realize is that Amazon does not generally make a lot of mony. NewEgg has continually been profitable since their inception. Amazon is relying on eventual volume sales and if NewEgg erodes even a portion of that, it can be very painful for Amazon.

Competitive Landscape Analysis

I recently did a Competitive Landscape analysis for NewEgg. The Executive Summary is below, and I think it is a pretty good read if you have ever been a NewEgg, Amazon, or eBay customer. If you are interesting in how to performance the analysis in detail, shoot me an email at: mario dot j dot campos at gmail dot com

Short Executive Summary
Analyzing one’s competitors is both a beneficial and necessary part of business. Electronic businesses are no exception, and evaluating their online presence in relation to competition can reveal startling truths about what battles you are fighting and where you are fighting them. This report profiles the e-commerce company Newegg, which sells a wide variety of electronics while emphasizing their personal computer component roots.

Newegg’s top ten competitors are analyzed, and their relation to the company may be surprising to a reader that assumes Newegg is still primarily competing with computer component e-tailers. In fact, besides mainstream desktop and laptop manufacturers, Newegg has no major competitor that focuses on the PC component market. Their competition is as diverse as Ebay to Wal-Mart and many companies in between.

Three chief findings are available from this competitive landscape profile. The first is that Ebay is Newegg’s top competitor, beating out a host of other companies, even Amazon.com. Second, Newegg is no longer a boutique PC component seller. It is a fully-fledged electronic e-commerce website. Lastly, Newegg’s web traffic comes almost entirely outside of its competition and so cannot merely ‘soak up’ the traffic from users that are unsure of which to choose. Newegg is the undisputed underdog in its competitive field.

To respond to the threats in this landscape, Newegg should instigate a three-pronged approach to defending its territory, expanding its user base, and increasing its profitability. First, Newegg should launch an e-marketing campaign aimed to boost it over Ebay in terms of safety, security, warranty, refunds, and customer service. Second, its mainstream non-PC component electronics should be advertised to purchasers of such products as DVD players, digital cameras, and TVs. Finally, Newegg should launch an online music and DVD distribution service to get a cut of the lucrative downloadable content marketplace. By establishing itself as an early key player, Newegg will be ready as consumers keep steadily switching to digital media.

These findings and recommendations are available to make Newegg more competitive and better able to defend its territory against in-roads from its competition. Newegg has the ability to continue to expand, both in terms of profitability and consumer demographics. The three recommended initiatives will set Newegg up for future long-term growth options while retaining their core spirit of enthusiast personal computer components.

References
Alexa. (2008). Retrieved April 13, 2008, from http://www.alexa.com.

Newegg. (2008). Retrieved April 13, 2008, from http://www.newegg.com.

Blog Analytics with BlogPulse and Google Trends

Below is an Executive Summary of a report I did to track the number of blog posts and searches in Google for three topics, which were box office movie studios, men's running shoes companies, and personal computer companies.

Short Executive Summary
This report seeks to compile a methodology for blog and web search trend analysis. It does this using the free services of BlogPulse and Google Trends. Only with a proper understanding of a company’s relative online market position can a marketer stay on top of consumer trends. By keeping on these trends, the company will continually benefit by creating awareness, goodwill, and possibly even sales through their online presence.

This report looks at the top three brands in three diverse product categories. The categories are box office movies, men’s running shoes, and personal computers. All categories are looked at in the United States only.

Analysis was performed on the three lowest companies in their respective product categories. These companies were: Disney, Adidas, and Apple in the categories of box office movies, men's running shoes, and personal computers, respectively. It appeared that Disney's website was too cluttered with non-movie oriented content and needed a seperate section for box office pictures. Adidas and Apple shared in common their lack of user interactivity. They need to create new ways to attract and keep users to increase their reach and buzz for their products.

It is the intent that this report will establish a broad framework for both compiling and starting to understand blog and search trends. By performing analysis the trends take on meaning and become tools for optimizing the marketing efforts of a firm. Lastly, trend analysis is a useful way to assess the online presence of company’s competitors.

REFERENCES
Adidas.com (2008). Retrieved April 6, 2008 from http://www.adidas.com
Apple.com (2008). Retrieved April 6, 2008 from http://www.apple.com
BlogPulse. (2008). BlogPulse Trend Search. Retrieved April 6, 2008, from http://www.blogpulse.com/trend
Disney.com (2008). Retrieved April 6, 2008 from http://www.disney.com
Garrett, D. (2008). Thinking outside the box office: bragging rights are fine, but profit is key [Electronic version]. Variety, 409(7), 10. from TableBase.
Google. (2008). Google Trends. Retrieved April 6, 2008, from http://www.google.com/trends
Olenick, D. (2008). 2007 PC shipments higher than expected [Electronic version]. TWICE, 23(3), 20. from TableBase.
The winning numbers: women's performance footwear and apparel outdistanced fashion offerings at retail in 2006 [Electronic version]. (2007). Sporting Goods Business, 40(3), 6. from TableBase.

eSkills - Web 2.0 Roundup

The first blog post here is a list of interesting and useful Web 2.0 websites that are useful for online business. I'm sure many of you have heard of at least some of these, but you are bound to check out a few new ones.

Skill #1 – Posting a Presentation on a Public Site

• SlideShare: http://www.slideshare.net/
• Usefulness: Store presentations online, can make them private, backup for a USB drive

Skill #2 – RSS Readers

• Go into a Google account
• Click “Reader”
• Click “Add Subscription”
• Type in a viable Blog with an RSS Feed
• Viola!
• Usefulness: Keep track of 10-20 different eBusiness news websites

Skill #3 – Tiny URL

• TinyURL: http://tinyurl.com/
• Usefulness: Shorten URLs for colleagues

Skill #4 – Historic Web Site Research

• WayBackMachine: http://www.archive.org/


• Usefullness: Use to track trends over time and see what direction your competition is moving in to predict their next movements

Skill #5 – Creating E-Mail Surveys

• SurveyMonkey: http://www.surveymonkey.com/


• Usefullness: Poll customer opinions (remember, garbage in -> garbage out)

Skill #6 - Professional Networking

• LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/
• Usefulness: The successful eBusiness entrepreneur thrives on professional contacts

Skill #7 – Person Search

• Intelius: http://www.intelius.com/
• Usefulness: Look up potential investors, partners, etc. - this is a last-ditch effort (try LinkedIn first)

Skills #8+ – Ten Cool Services You Need to Know About

• Orkut (http://www.orkut.com/) = Online Social Network through Google


• Ning (http://www.ning.com/) = Social Network creation service, networks based on themes (such as Fishing, Urban Hip Hop, etc.)


• Furl (http://www.furl.net/) = Social bookmarking sit, save/share/browse bookmarks


• Skype (http://www.skype.com/) = (Free) Online internet telephony


• Technorati (http://www.technorati.com/) = Blog posts and news posts that are popular, sorted by subject area


• CEO Express (http://www.ceoexpress.com/) = Large Portal with a lot of business-oriented links for CEOs


• Digg (http://www.digg.com/) = User submitted links that are popular, based on “Diggs,” which are essentially votes by users


• Twitter (http://www.twitter.com/) = Site where users can list their activities so other people can see “What you are doing”


• Del.icio.us (http://del.icio.us/) = Social bookmarking, sorted by popularity