The Social Measuring Cup: Evaluating Metrics

Posted on April 12, 2010 by in Business, Goals, Internet, Life
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It’s a pretty well known fact that I’m not a big metrics guy. I’ve spoken about it openly online whenever the discussion presents itself. Sure, I use Google Analytics and I do pay attention to what’s going on as it pertains to eyeballs coming into my websites. I would have to be pretty ignorant and complacent to not look at information that could possibly help me plan for the future in the form of what content is more valuable and sought after. But, as more and more services and people that use them try to analyze the value of results with metrics in today’s more social web world, I often wonder how much we can truly “tell” from this data that we are presented with? I know that it works in a multitude of ways for various niches, products and services that are using it for specific reasons. I respect the fact it does work in many circumstances and is a proven method for successful results. But, let’s take a look at the human side of metrics. The results we cannot humanly measure. When a person sees somethings and tells someone and therefore you make a sale or connection that equals a result you had hoped for. As we all find these hidden gems we are searching, communicating and mining on the internet, I tend to wonder how much of “it” is never relayed back to the content provider, the person on the other end hoping you find them? How much is actually outside the realm of measuring results through web traffic data, but  just good old fashioned word of mouth due to one person telling another. In other words, we can’t get metrics inside the human brain, so how do we really know completely what is driving the successful results as more and more social, unpredictable behavior drives decisions on or off the web. I’ve heard stories where someone has found our company over dinner chat from one heavy web user to another person who doesn’t use any of the social sites on the web, just email mainly. So there’s a great example of it traveling beyond the metrics. I would love to know your thoughts and experiences with metrics. What do you use? Do you feel it has changed with the times, and the reasons for your thinking on the subject. It is a truly fascinating topic for me and I hope to learn a thing or two from your comments, thoughts, and ideas. Thanks for taking the time. Oh and BTW, I will be seeing how well this post does using Google Analytics :)
Respectfully, DG


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  • hanniespice

    I use metrics only to really see page counts as to when I write and what the topic covers. You can see spikes in numbers when I publish something that might be of some news and discussion value. Even if I write something bla bla, like my metrics moment (why people are looking for me) page numbers go up. But what's key is how people are finding me.

    If you look at my metrics moment, you can see that the first on the list is hannie kitsap. So someone is obviously looking for me, and they've just somehow heard that my name is hannie, I live in Kitsap and I have something to say this week? However, I know that you can creatively skew the numbers, depending on how you make a post or page visible/available for others to access.

    I believe you made a very valid point in saying hey, how do you honestly rate the people who find your site because of actual human communication. For instance, I can give you a card of mine. Said card tells you that yes, I am a writer, I am an activist, here's my telephone number and my domain. It doesn't have my actual blog address on that card and you'd have to actually search for it if you hit my domain home page. Bad marketing idea on my part? Partially, because I'm lazy and haven't changed the page back. I could be missing out on potential people viewing my page.

    Maybe there's a group of people at a restaurant or some other public place. Discussion turns to whatever subject. Then someone mentions something they saw online. Oh wait, do you have the web address for that? You can't measure word of mouth but it surely helps.

  • http://dangordon.me/ Dan Gordon

    Thanks very much for your thoughts and comments. I couldn't agree more… I think you really summed up what I am trying to say and also expanded upon it. No one really talks about the other stuff, the real life stuff that existed before metrics and main stream internet measurement analyzation tools, it's just now there is an extension from the web itself, into real life networking that is abundant and cannot be measured unless it's relayed back to us in some way shape or form. Thanks very much for taking the time to comment. I really get what you are saying and appreciate your time.