I’ve updated my presentation on free tools for social media research and measurement. This was first done in 2010 for Social Media World Forum, and went down very well, getting 11K+ views and being featured on the Slideshare homepage. So I hope this updated version will be useful too!

I just got the following email from Google Ad Planner, and it sounds like some disappointing changes are afoot. I use Google AdPlanner for research for social media campaigns – to identify potential partners, to understand audience behaviours online in terms of what their top websites are etc., and lots of related research projects. OK, so I’m not using it for what it’s supposed to be used for, and it’s free, so I shouldn’t complain, right? But there you go, I’m complaining. It’s an essential tool for me to understand user behaviour!

The biggest change which will affect me is that they aren’t going to show data for sites not on the Google Ad Network. This means sites like Facebook. So I’ll lose the data which tells me what % of my audience visit Facebook. OK, that particular stat I can wrangle out of total online audience volume from Google Ad Planner and then use Facebook Marketplace Ad planner to get my audience volume, and get the % from that… but for other sites without their own DIY ad platform, who aren’t on Google Display Network, I’ll have no data.

Main bit of the email from Google Ad Planner:

Starting September 5th, 2012, the new version of Ad Planner will be dedicated to supporting research on placements on the Google Display Network, which comprises more than 2 million sites from across the web. As part of this change, certain information and filters will no longer be available within Ad Planner, for example Household Education and Education.

What does this change mean for you?

• The product name will now be Google Display Network Ad Planner
• You can no longer research domains or ad placements that are not part of the Google Display Network
• Some demographic data will not be available including Keywords Searched For, Videos Also Watched, HouseHold Income and Education
• Adjustments to a few of the traffic columns like Unique Users and Reach, removal of PageViews
• Publisher Center, the feature that allows publishers to claim their own sites, list relevant ad placement availability & pricing, will be deprecated

Booooo!

I’ve been blogging, but not here. Here’s the posts I’ve written on my work’s blog. Click the titles for the full articles.

Engaging Networks’ #spark11 conference for non-profits

On Tuesday 14 June 2011 I attended Engaging Networks’ Spark event in London. Engaging Networks is the new name for Advocacy Online – the supporter engagement software that allows organisations to manage fundraising, campaigning/advocacy, email and social actions in a centralised platform.

Audience research – getting to know your Facebook Fans

We all know that the better we know and understand our audiences, the more likely our communications with them will be successful. If we’re already talking to people on Facebook, what do we know about who’s listening? Facebook Insights tells us the age and gender of our fans, and where they are, but nothing about what interests them. We can look at what content we put out and see what is the most engaging, but how would we know what we’re missing? Also, how do we know how different our fans are to the average Facebook user?

NixonMcInnes adopt Unison model workplace policy on domestic abuse

It’s world mental health day today, so I thought I’d blog about a related bit of recent NixonMcInnes news.

Last year I went to the Feminism in London conference and also to a seminar on women’s rights at Socialism 2010, and while there I learnt why domestic abuse is a workplace issue.

Victims of domestic abuse are likely to be affected in ways which affect their working lives – they may need to take time out of work, e.g. to visit a healthcare professional for physical or mental health reasons and their ability to deliver their actual work may be threatened – as such, workplaces need to take active steps to make sure they are not going to inadvertently discriminate against victims.

Current themes around social media and fundraising

Max and I did a presentation last week on the current themes around social media digital and fundraising (well, c’mon, digital is pretty much all social now, right?). Here’s a few of the big ones as we see it:

• Social proof
• Gaming
• Micropayments
• Geo-social
• Fundraising for campaign comms
• Corporate social sponsorship / partnership
• Crowd-sourced products / transactional donations

Happiness vs work

As many of you know, here at NixonMcInnes, in our attempts to prioritise people before profit, we measure happiness of the workforce.

As every ‘normal’ business should, we also measure how much chargeable work we’re doing.

I wondered – when we have tonnes of work to do, do we get stressed and unhappy? So, I mapped the two figures.

OK so this post is a few weeks late and I haven’t blogged in a while, but since it seemed to go down well at Social Media World Forum and got featured on Slideshare’s homepage (woohoo!), I thought it’d be worth putting my presentation on my blog too. This is what I presented at SMWF 2010 in London. Lots of free tools to use for social media research and measurement, in addition to, or instead of, paid-for tools, depending on what you’re trying to do and what your budget is. The Google analytics bit comes with the disclaimer that with most social media campaigns you’re not aiming for high volumes of traffic, but good quality traffic and high engagement in the place that you’re active, rather than just trying to pull people to your site.