Using Engagement to Rank Facebook App Popularity

Engagement is a difficult metric to define. There isn't one "right" set of engagement metric. Typically, the most relevant engagement metrics depend on context. Here's an example:

Facebook used to rate the popularity of applications using the number of "users". To incent appl developers to provide apps that enhance utility of Facebook, it's changed the rating to a different basis, defining "engagement" metrics that it hopes indicate that users find the app relevant, useful and show engagement by the amount of continuous interaction with the app. As this post (titled A Shift to Engagement) shows, the metrics are specific to the Facebook environment...

"engagement as the number of users who touch your application every day (measured from midnight to midnight each day). These touch points are:

- Canvas Page Views
- Link Clicks in FBML*
- Mock-Ajax Form Submission
- Click-to-Play Flash"

It will be interesting to see if/how this affects the developer behaviour.



* FBML is "Facebook Markup Language"

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WAA BaseCamp and Cooking Artichokes

Just returned from presenting the one-day Site Optimization seminar at the Web Analytics Association's BaseCamp in New York. What an engaged group of interested marketers and web analysts! Great to see the rising interest in web analytics.

WAA BaseCamp has been presented in 4 cities to date (Los Angeles, Boston, Chicago and New York), with one remaining for Washington D.C, right before the Emetrics Marketing Optimization Summit. Last week, I also had to pleasure of participating in the Boston BaseCamp. BaseCamp is a selective extract of the award-winning, continuously sold out WAA/UBC Web Analytics curriculum. BaseCamp is a single day, seminar format, while the UBC courses are fully online.

Today, back in Toronto, just in time for today's members-only WAA Webcast "Web Analytics is Easy!", with Eric Petersen. Eric has been emphasizing process, and I agree process is important. Once the process is in place, Web Analytics can indeed be easy. However, getting to "easy" ain't so easy.

As Bryan Eisenberg said yesterday in his presentation at BaseCamp, "To many folks, Web Analytics is like cooking an artichoke...lots of effort, not a lot of return." Bryan's point was it doesn't have to be that way, focus on process, people and tools, not the reverse (read Bryan's post yesterday).

Looking forward to the Webcast, and the discussion that's sure to follow.

June Li
ClickInsight

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Winning over your CFO and other Marketing Skeptics - Free AMA webcast

Relevant to building both "business" and "political" savvy in my last post, here's an upcoming webcast (August 21, 2007) that may be of interest:

Is Your Marketing an Expense...or an Investment
10 Strategies for Winning Over Your CFO and other Marketing Skeptics

“... too little has changed in the world of marketing since Lord Leverhulme’s famous quote: ‘Half of what I spend is wasted. The trouble is I just don’t know which half.’ Some 70 years later, this is all too often how the marketing function is seen. Less than 50% effective, with serious, often high-profile, doubts about which half is the effective half. We really do still have a long way to go.” — Rob Malcolm, President of Marketing, Sales, and Innovation, Diageo

More than ever, it can be a challenging time to be a marketing professional. Executive-level scrutiny of your investments and business impact has reached an unprecedented level as organizations question long-held assumptions. While this bottom line focus causes anxiety for many marketers, this needn’t always be the case... View the Webcast page.

This free AMA webcast is sponsored by Aquent.

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Are you a Triple Threat?

In the show business, a "triple threat" is someone who can sing, dance and act.

I recently met a marketing triple threat, Joy Boyson, a skillful practitioner of the 3D's of marketing - Direct, Digital and Database Marketing.

Is there a Web Analytics Triple Threat? Yes!

The blogosphere has been active with posts about web analyst requirements and skills (Anil, Stephane, Avinash...). The requirements list is long and probably quite daunting to many. So let's step back and take this to a more aggregate level, using the Triple Threat metaphor.

Successful and effective web analysts have these Triple Threat characteristics:

• Tech savvy
  
• Business savvy
• Politically savvy

What the heck is savvy? A combination of skill, knowledge & capability to execute accompanied by exceptional judgement. Savvy typically comes with experience & can be accelerated by education. It is that nebulous capability of just "getting it". This from-the-gut response is well described by Malcolm Gladwell in his book, Blink, as an ability to "thin slice".

Tech savvy includes being able to grasp the logfile, javascript, cookie, packet sniffing, tagging process, Ajax/flash/rss/video tracking complexities as well as A/B testing, statistics, and how to best use visitor feedback and usability studies. See earlier post.

• Every tool and technique has its place. The analyst doesn't have to be an expert in executing every single method but they have to know when to use and not to use the tool/technique, and who to get help from. (This is why the Web Analytics Forum is such a hopping place!)

Business savvy includes the ability to understand the way communications, PR, & how direct/ digital/database/cross-channel/e-mail/search engine marketing works, analyze the data and make recommendations.

• When analysts come up with "what's happening", they are then frequently asked "so what do we do now?" Can't very well say, I don't know, I just analyze, go ask a marketer.
  
• Once again, the analyst doesn't have to be an expert in marketing execution. Provide advice, and know where/who to get help from if you need it (Attend events such as the emetrics Marketing Optimization summit).
  

Political savvy is the toughest. The analyst has to assess the situation and position recommendations for success.

• Recommendations should align with the client's goals. The analyst needs to analyze the likelihood of success of their client in executing change, and help their client move forward.
  
• Whether you are an external consultant or an internal consultant within an organization, the core situation is no different. The is a big difference though in the scale of the effort. The analysts who have the easiest time are those who work directly with the top of the house. The internal analyst in middle management typically has the most difficult time and experiences the greatest frustration. Yes, I agree with Jacques Warren that getting quick wins is the best way to sell web analytics. However, identifying quick win possibilities and executing them is unfortunately easier said than done. The analyst is typically NOT the person executing (if you are, you don't know how lucky you are!) And that's when the quick win approach grinds to a halt. You typically have to convince someone else to DO IT!
  
• The reality is that analysts often have to manage across, down and up their organization to productively catalyze change and progress. This is what makes web analytics difficult. If you are not ready to for this, you will be frustrated. (To alleviate frustration, attend Web Analytics Wednesdays to share war stories.)
  

Since customer are cross-channel, analytics worlds continue to overlap. How much can one person support? As Jim Novo mentioned in this post, "...we’re already seeing web analytics job postings with phrases like 'strong knowledge of SAS and SPSS highly desirable' meaning employers are looking for cross-platform, cross-tool, cross-channel analysts." These organizations have evolved from the early days of analytics, and there is likely more than one web analyst. In this situation, only the "Director of Analytics" or the "Manager" of an organization needs to have Triple Threat capabilities. Supporting this position will be specialized web analysts with deep knowledge.

Comments?

June Li
ClickInsight

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