New Pew report on social media use

PIP_Twitter_Fall_2009 –

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Research Study: @sockington is more influential than @chrisbrogan

This Webecology research report has been making the rounds on Twitter. I haven’t had time to read it until now, here are my reading notes:

The Webecology team uses large scale data mining to identify patterns indicative of online culture and community. Wish I’d do this, too – and will, as soon as I find a research partner to help with the data mining part.

For this project, the authors set out to create a more accurate measure of influence on Twitter that goes beyond either:

1. number of followers; or
2. followers/friends ratio

The authors defined influence on Twitter as:

influence on Twitter = the potential of an action of a user to initiate a further action by another user

Specifically, influence means the potential of a tweet to generate replies, mentions (conversational behaviors), RTs, and attributions (content-pushing behaviors).

This is an atheoretical, operational definition of influence (the study’s Achille’s heel).

As far as I understand, all 4 actions were weighed equally. So, a RT factors the same as an @reply in determining influence.

They selected 12 Twitter accounts to study. The selection was based on this criterion: the 12 accounts were  ”widely perceived to be among the more influential users on Twitter.” It is not clear who did the perceiving, and what definition or measure of influence they used in the process of perception. IMO, the arbitrary selection of the sample is another major weakness – but in this case, I can live with it, because the purpose is not to derive conclusions about Twitter culture as much as it is to demonstrate how the methodology can be used.

Then, the 12 users were grouped into 3 categories. Here is a table with the accounts they analyzed, and their number of tweets over 10 days, as well as the number of followers and friends at the end of the 10 days:

—

Celebrities	Username	Tweets	Followers	Followees
Ashton Kutcher	aplusk	3,205	3,407,385	209
Shaquille O’Neil	THE_REAL_SHAQ	2,072	2,092,541	562
Stanley Kirk Burrell	MCHammer	6,016	1,331,797	31,202
Sockington	sockington	5,711	1,089,984	380
Justine Ezarik	ijustine	7,718	605,441	3,039
News Outlets	Username	Tweets	Followers	Followees
CNN Breaking News	cnnbrk	1,096	2,712,530	18
BarackObama.com	BarackObama	330	2,018,016	761,851
Mashable.com	mashable	17,914	1,363,510	1,925
CNN	cnn	11,607	193,625	50
Social Media Analysts	Username	Tweets	Followers	Followees
Gary Vaynerchuk	garyvee	7,532	862,790	9,683
Chris Brogan	chrisbrogan	48,341	94,715	88,431
Robert Scoble	Scobleizer	23,112	94,295	2,423

The data that they mined was as collected over 10 days, in August 2009. The data included:

• The 2143 tweets generated by the 12 users
• The 90,130 actions (responses, RTs) triggered by the original 2143 tweets
• All the tweets generated in connection with the 12 users (by their followers and friends;a total of 134, 654 tweets, 15,866,629 followers, and 899,773 friends/followees)

The authors produced 2 types of influence reports, based on the type of action that was triggered:

1. conversational action (people replied, or mentioned the user – e.g. “meeting @stockington for catnip”)
2. content-pushing action (people retweeted, or gave attribution – e.g. “via@username”)

Please note that a mention may or may not be a response to a tweet. If they were not responses to a tweet, they fall outside the authors’ definition of Twitter influence, and they should have been excluded from the analysis.

Here we go, on to the findings:

Conversational action

This graph shows you the amount of conversational activity (@replies and mentions) each user got in response to one (average) tweet.

Content action

This graph shows you how much content action (retweets and attributions) each user got for each (average) tweet:

So here we see that, per tweet, @sockington did get more retweets than @chrisbrogan.

The authors claim that these graphs of influence/tweet are the most accurate measure of Twitter influence so far. Therefore:

@sockington IS more influential on Twitter than @chrisbrogan,

because the fake cat gets more retweets. (sorry, @sockington, I do love you!!!)

I know exactly what you’re thinking, it starts with B and ends with T.

That’s because here we have a problem of construct validity. The measures do not actually measure influence. I wish the authors had read some research in communication & persuasion about the concept of influence, then worked their way from a conceptual to an operational definition.

Obviously, @sockington gets more retweets because he’s cuter & funnier than @chrisbrogan (sorry, Chris!). We don’t know why people reply or retweet. This study ignores a very important aspect of human relations: meaning. There is meaning in tweets, and meaning in why people retweet. But that is not captured in this study.

That being said, the report shows what can be done with data mining – it’s awesome! With a bit of help from people who know how to study meaning (hint, hint!), this type of research will be extremely valuable.

If anything, let this be an argument for computers & communication people working together, across disciplines.

In a future post, I will review conceptual and operational definitions of influence.

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Dr. V breaks out of the ivory tower

It strikes me that I can write conference papers and journal articles – but they have no impact, because no one reads them. Even if people want to read them, they don’t have access, because most academic journals are protected behind walls, and the password costs hundreds, if not thousands, of $$$ a year.

But I wrote one white paper (the first one, because I’ve been trained not to believe in self-publishing: “If it’s not double-blind reviewed, it doesn’t matter!”) and I’m amazed to see that all of a sudden I get media attention – and most surprisingly, that PR and marketing practitioners out there are actually interested in theory and research!!! (what rock have I been hiding under?!).

Here are a couple of media pieces based on interviews I’ve given:

• an article in BtoB about online news releases
• a podcast interview about social media and some of my recent research (importance of blogs in PR, social media & culture, online news releases)

The ROI of online news releases study got more media coverage, you can find a list on Jiyan Wei’s blog, but I’m not sure if he updates it…

Oh, and while I’m at it, I wrote a book, too, I guess that should count here, though the price and academic writing style might keep it in the ivory tower…

I’m thrilled to at least open a window of the ivory tower, which I find so suffocating!

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Blogs matter

Thanks to all of you who participated in my survey about the importance of blogs in public relations!

Here is my presentation of the results (runs about 19 minutes).

If you quote this presentation, you can use the following citation:

Vorvoreanu, M. (2008). Blogs matter. Panel presentation at the National Communication Association Annual Convention, Public Relations Division, San Diego, CA.

Here are some highlights from the results, based on a convenience/viral (non-probability*) sample of 203 respondents:

Blogs matter in hiring decisions

• Among respondents with 5+ years of experience in PR, if they had a choice between equally qualified job candidates, but one candidate had a blog and the other one did not,
  • 74% would hire the one with the blog
  • 19% would hire the one without the blog

• Both people who blog and do not blog are more likely to hire the candidate who has a well-written, good professional blog. Among the respondents who do not write a blog themselves:
  • 57% would hire the candidate with a blog
  • 33% would hire the candidate without a blog

• Respondents who write a blog:
  • 86% would hire the candidate with a blog
  • 8% would hire the candidate without a blog

Blogs matter for individuals

I asked PR bloggers what benefits they have derived from blogging. These were the most frequently mentioned benefits:

1. Contacts, networking, engaging with PR community (26; 34%)
2. Business benefits: jobs, clients, income, internships, speaking opportunities (21; 27%)
2. Learning, keeping current (21; 27%)
2. Gaining recognition, credibility; thought leadership; personal branding (21; 27%)
Other: Sharing knowledge (10; 13%), SEO (6; 8%)
None: 3; 3.9%

Blogs matter for the PR profession

I asked both bloggers and non bloggers how they thought PR practitioners’ blogs impact the PR field.

• 91% of respondents said PR practitioner blogs have a positive impact
• 6% said PR practitioner blogs have no or very little impact
• 2% said PR practitioner blogs negative impact

PR practitioner blogs increase practitioner knowledge and move PR towards higher standards of professionalism

• Knowledge benefits (75%):
  • Educate each other (23%)
  • Create & share knowledge & best practices (32%)
  • Dialogue & discussion (17%)
  • Unify PR field (10%)
  • Keep current (6%)
• Professionalism benefits (18%)
  • Increase transparency; flack (9%)
  • Higher professional standards (6%)
  • Prove the value of PR (3%)

I encourage you to view the presentation so you can get more details and put these findings in context.

*Please remember that this sample is not representative of PR practitioners in the U.S. – or we don’t know if it is – so we can’t assume that these results apply to other people who did not participate in this survey.

Thanks again to all who participated and let me know if you have any questions!

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Do blogs matter in PR? I need your help with new research project…

I’ve started a new research project about the importance of blogs for PR people & the industry as a whole.

I’ve got a favor to ask you: Would you give me 7-8 minutes to take this online survey?

If you’re a PR pro, student, educator, whether you blog or not, I need your thoughts.

I’ll share the results in academic papers and presentations, my PR Connections blog, and here.

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

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Value of Online News Releases

If you missed the Vocus webinar about online news releases, here is the recording of the session. You can also download the slides (pdf), and the executive summary of the ROI of Online Press Releases SNCR study.

The webinar includes:

• a couple of case studies (Jiyan Wei, Vocus)
• presentation of survey methodology and results (Jen McClure, SNCR & yours truly)
• interpretation of results: dual role, multiple purpose of online news releases (yours truly)
• recommendations for best practices (Shel Holtz, Holtz Communication + Technology)
• Q & A

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Conversational Human Voice

Researchers Tom Kelleher and Barbara Miller have created an 11-item measure of the conversational human voice (yes, the Cluetrain Manifesto one). So, if you’d like to measure the conversational human voice of your blog, website, or automated telephone prompters (OK, maybe not this last one), plug the following items in a survey and ask your public to respond:

1. Invites people to conversation.
2. Is open to dialogue.
3. Uses conversation-style communication.
4. Tries to communicate in a human voice.
5. Tries to be interesting in communication.
6. Uses a sense of humor in communication.
7. Provides links to competitors.
8. Attempts to make communication enjoyable.
9. Would admit a mistake.
10. Provides prompt feedback addressing criticism with a direct but uncritical
    manner.
11. Treats me and others as human.

The items are published on p. 413 of the article (see full citation & link below). For those who wish to get technical, the authors reported an alpha reliability coefficient of .87 for this scale. Which means that the scale has pretty high internal consistency – or that people who rank high on one item in the scale tend to rank high on the other ones, too. If they didn’t, you’d wonder if the items are measuring different things. OK, enough about that.

But why would I want to measure human voice?

I don’t know, why would you? You tell me in the comments. If you’re trying to fake the human voice and want to use this measure to see if you succeed, well… well, you have bigger problems then. But you might want to perform an experiment to assess the different impacts of different levels of conversational human voice. That’s what the authors tried to do in phase II of their study, but the validity gods weren’t merciful with that part and for that reason I’d rather not write about it. I’ll stick with the good part.

I find it very useful to have a validated scale for measuring human voice, but then, my world here in the ivory tower is a weird, weird one (you might say). What does the real world think? Would you use this scale? When? Why? How?

Article citation:

Kelleher, T., & Miller, B. M. (2006). Organizational blogs and the human voice: Relational Strategies and Relational Outcomes. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 11(2), 395-414.

(it’s one of those few academic journals available for free online)

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Making of “A Vision of Students Today”

If you haven’t seen the video A Vision of Students Today, it’s not too late. You’ll certainly enjoy it and it will make you think. If you’re a student, I’d love to know how you relate to the video and what it means to you. Moreover, I’d like you to tell me what you think it should mean to me, as an instructor.

The video’s author, professor Wesch from Kansas State University, explains here the step-by-step process of making the video. I thought students who are thinking about an alternative project for their senior theses would like to see how you can use a video to report research results.

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Interview with Jeremiah Owyang

 Following up on a post in which Jeremiah Owyang, (@jowyang) Senior Analyst at Forrester Research, describes his job responsibilities, I asked him a few questions about valuable skills in the analyst industry. Clemson communication students learn excellent research skills, and Jeremiah’s job is an example of putting those skills to work.

Read his blog post first, then this Q&A:

Dr. V’s comment: Thank you for explaining the nature of your job. I’ll share this with my students, who often find it hard to believe that the research and writing skills we teach them in college will ever come in handy

JO’s response: The Research job is laborious, but important in making decisions. Every day analysts and researchers influence how millions of dollars are spent and managed. As a result, they’re well compensated, and are one of the top non executive earners in the industry.

Dr. V: What are the top 3 most useful/important skills for your job?

JO: Seeing the big picture. Numbers and facts are useless without insight, analysis, and perspective. Students need to first get real world experience before becoming a researcher or analyst, I’ve served my time working up the corporate ladder for 7 years (which is considered very fast), I’m 31, and haven’t even reached the mid-point in my career, so work hard and stay focused. When I first started to focus on social computing, people laughed at me, they thought blogs and social networks were silly and for kids, now it’s a major industry.

Dr. V: What are some things college students should focus on/try to learn well if they hope to work as a researcher/analyst someday?

JO: Think strategic, think about the large scope of things. Be very aware and absorb lots of information, including info outside of school, teachers, and class. I read materials online, and made a vow to learn one new skill everyday at my internship.

Dr. V: If/When you interview for a new position or an internship, what are the most important things you look for in a candidate? What are the deal breakers?

JO: Ambition, ability to communicate effectively, and I’ll be checking out their Facebook and MySpace page to understand what they’re really like. The good news is, we want to see the human side of a candidate, but the party pics should probably be in a private folder. Ironically, I was a poor student in High School and College (but I did graduate). I did well in the creative arts, and was never great at math or business classes like accounting or Finance. Fortunately, in the workplace, one can find their true comfort area.

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