Read all the details here:

Ultra high-speed broadband is coming to Kansas City, Kansas

From all of us at Agent X (formerly Steketee Greiner and Company) to all of you out there who put in all the time and effort and devotion at the local level around this initiative, we just want to say, in case no has or ever does, we were sincerely impressed, and you’re ALL winners in our book.

David

You can find a copy of the presentation that Brian Steketee presented below.

The presentation covers the basics of Google Analytics and AdWords as well as some more advanced features and considerations.

Download Here

Thank you once again for your interest and happy measuring!!

David

The beauty of where this all goes – AdAge Viral video chart

http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=143824

As I spent some time today on AdAge getting my daily dose of what’s happening and who’s who, I came across a great article that was talking about the most successful viral campaigns of the week. What was intriguing and also wonderful at the same time is that AdAge was referencing “Visible Measures” viral ability chart as a reference guide to who was winning the race. So there we have it – a publication that was once dedicated to a traditional advertising model paying homage once again to the power of digital and and non-traditional. Google’s Chrome video took the lead with an impressive 1.86MM views on a new spot they published online. Toyota was close behind with 1.85MM views regarding a campaign they put together for the Sienna.

What I love most about this example is the market’s willingness to understand and give credibility to the power of digital and social media. However I must say there is a great opportunity to provide more insight into this report than just how many views have been achieved. There is so much more data available to help you understand the true impact and connection that these impressions have had with the eyeballs that have viewed them. If harnessed correctly, marketers have the ability to make those moments so much more impactful to both the brand and the consumer experiencing them.

Brian

As we began to monitor conversations around the initiative and the participating cities in the digital landscape, several cities stood out as clear leaders. These leaders had over ten thousand Facebook fans alone, with some breaking twenty and even thirty thousand. Pictures, tweets, blog posts, videos and more all supported the digital media presence of active cities, showing how very hands on participants became – fiber became a catalyst for community growth in cyberspace and beyond. And I say beyond, and this is a key learning for everyone, because the cities that controlled the largest share of digital voice were those that not only pulled together strategies for deploying digital media but carried it through to PR and experiential activities as well.

As Google’s March 26th deadline loomed closer we monitored even more excitement online as many cities saw last minute increases to their fan bases. This was likely tied to the flood of nationally recognized events various cities used for promotion, as well as the effect of word of mouth and the variety of media coverage that backed the buzz around Google’s fiber initiative.

So here we are, just over a month since the fiber ‘storm’ passed. It’s been interesting to watch how conversation around the initiative in the digital landscape waned. The leaders in the Facebook space continued to grow, but each added just a few thousand fans since the deadline. And many of the cities vying for Google’s fiber have seen a significant drop in their online conversation since the deadline for the RFI. Basically, Google thanked everyone for applying and relegated share of online voice to its position in its decision making process, and, for the most part, most participants gradually stepped back their efforts. Really, the only major additional event since the close of the application process happened on April Fool’s Day (April 1st) when Google changed its site name to ‘Topeka’ as a tip of the cap to Topeka, Kansas which changed its name to ‘Google, Kansas’ as part of its campaign.

What is surprising is how little uproar there appears to be from all of the cities that invested a great deal of time and money in participating in this initiative. We were expecting to find a good of negative sentiment against Google for not choosing a city faster and leaving America waiting with no clear date on when the selection would be made. With the large number of content contributors in cities such as Grand Rapids, Duluth, Topeka, Greenville (South Carolina) and Pittsburgh, one could draw the logical conclusion that a high number of comments and negative content speaking out against Google would appear in the digital space, or at the very least, the conversations would intensify generating more content around their desire for Google’s fiber broadband. But that isn’t the case. Something more interesting is happening: there are new initiatives being driven by cities that submitted applications to Google focused on creating local support for broadband fiber lines, regardless of what decision Google makes. That’s an interesting twist and a really brilliant example of how powerful WOM can be. In this instance, though Google created the initial groundswell, generating a mass of interest on a large scale, the bit of subject matter seems to be of greater interest than the actual Google campaign itself. That sounds like it should naturally be the case, but think about it. This is a solid example of WOM being used to sell a simple, good idea. I like to think that even if Google never intended to pull the trigger on installing broadband fiber anywhere, the awareness for the technology that this campaign raised would justify the investments.

To illustrate what’s currently happening, on April 15th “Google Island” (Sarasota, Florida’s Facebook page) posted:

“Due to the overwhelming support and momentum from the community…our leadership at city and county are putting together a team of key people to continue to push a broadband agenda.”

It sounds like Sarasota is pretty committed to fiber broadband (whether it’s from Google or not). That begs the question: did the mayor really need to jump into a shark-tank to spark activation with consumers? The honest answer is maybe. We tracked spikes in online conversation and activity around events such as the Google, Kansas rename, Duluth’s idea of renaming all firstborns Google and many other similar events that all certainly raised awareness for the fiber initiative and educated consumers on the value of having it available throughout their respective cities. The question now shifts from “How do we get Google’s attention?” to “How do we develop a strategy that will take the online interest generated by awareness for broadband fiber and translate it into something tangible for our community?”

Two people seem to be addressing that question. Jay Ovittore and Craig Settles started an initiative to carry the momentum of Google Fiber into something tangible by supporting communities and their leaders as they try to create fiber broadband on their own, without ‘winning’ fiber from Google. You can get more information on Communities United for Broadband here.

In another initiative that has popped up after Google’s deadline for RFIs had passed, Greenville, (South Carolina) has taken the initiative to make a website where people can vote for cities which they feel are most deserving of being awarded Google’s fiber. Not surprising, Greenville’s enthusiasm, which has been constant throughout the submission period, earned their city over 300,000 votes on the site. However, Asheville, North Carolina recently took the lead with over 400,000 votes. Duluth, Minnesota came in ‘third’ with over 12,000 votes with other cities on the list having far fewer votes, but the ‘ranking’ is open until May 6th.

The initiative is a great vehicle to continue to generate awareness, but there are questions as to how this site will ultimately contribute to getting broadband fiber connectivity. However it plays out, it will need to generate an opportunity outside of the Google initiative, because according to Greenville Online, a South Carolina news outlet, Google’s Product Manager Minnie Ingersoll said, “To be clear, our decisions will be based entirely on the responses and data we’ve gathered for our Request for Information.” She added, “This web site is not authorized by Google.” But the brains behind Greenville’s efforts thus far have been diligent, and it seems likely that they’ll look to create an angle to position their cause.

So where does all this leave us? Shark tanks, babies named ‘Google’ and more brought us to here, and now all the people who put so much time and energy into their efforts on behalf of their respective cities are playing a waiting game while Google decides how they want to proceed. And yet, many of the people involved in all of this don’t seem content to wait and are now turning their efforts toward picking up the broadband fiber torch independently of any help from Google and continuing their local groundswells in pursuit of what they set out for – better connectivity.

No matter how things turn out, the most relevant insight in all of this is that a good idea is a good idea (high speed broadband fiber connectivity), and if you craft a solid strategy for communicating its value proposition (like Google did), people will take ownership of the idea and respond. And regardless of who owned or owns the share of voice online for this initiative and ultimately who Google chooses to work with to install Google Fiber, this campaign is a fantastic example of how effective (and ineffective) traditional and non-traditional communications can be used together to not only generate awareness, but to inspire whole communities and affect real change.

On that note, and based on Google’s post on its official blog that it will be making its selection “…by the end of the year,” we have decided to take a step back from our weekly reports, evaluate the number of cities participating in online efforts around the initiative to make sure that we have the most inclusive list possible and then resume our efforts on a regular basis until Google makes its final decision. Again, we’re not saying in any way that Google is using online share of voice as a factor in its decision making process, but we still want to make sure that everyone knows who the top contenders are around this metric and what they are doing to try to get Google’s attention online. And given Google’s tip of the cap to Topeka today, the question has to be asked: does it hurt to go out of your way a bit to stay top of mind in the digital world?

So, look for our next report sometime in April, and thanks to everyone who continues to send in insights and requests on behalf of your city – we are taking as much relevant information into account as we can. In the meantime, make sure you continue to include your city in your tagging strategy, as we’ll continue to base our search for data on the participating cities, and please don’t hesitate to email me at david.greiner@sgandco.com with questions, concerns and anything else I should know is going on in your world.

Finally, and this is way past due, thanks to Martin at Zettaphile for his efforts in compiling the original list of Google fiber cities on his blog. It was our starting point.

Thanks and again, best of luck to everyone!

David

With all of that said, our next report will cast a broader net in hopes of pulling in some of the disparate Facebook pages and other digital channels that need to be included for participating cities to be accurately analyzed and ranked. We will also be including some insights along the line of what I’ve explained above.

In the meantime, thanks to everyone taking the time to comment. Please continue to contribute any data that may be relevant to our efforts and tune in late next week for the next report.

Good luck everyone, and keep the conversations going. We’ll be monitoring.

David

With community events for Google’s fiber initiative beginning on March 19^th and the growing level of online community involvement that’s building here in Grand Rapids, we put together the first in a series of reports measuring the digital conversations and online efforts surrounding the participating cities looking to have Google’s hyper-speed fiber communications lines installed, creating a rank of the top 10 candidate cities by share of the total conversation happening around the initiative online.

This first report ranks the aspiring cities by share of total number of mentions in conversations happening between February 15 to March 17 on digital media channels, and we’ll continue to publish reports weekly showing the collected digital efforts and rankings of the top 10 cities until Google makes its final choice.

Google has multiple factors in their decision making process, including how interested a community is in working with Google, community support, local activities, needs and resources, approved construction methods, local regulatory issues and area broadband speeds. Most participating cities assert that online interaction in their campaigns will increase the chances of favorability in their selection by Google, and we’ll be presenting the data and insights that will ultimately show how important a factor online share of voice is in the process.

The first report is available for download here. Just click on the image below. And stay tuned for additional reports in the coming weeks.

UPDATE: As we continue our research and measurement for our next report, we’ve noticed that some cities’ online efforts are being conducted around nicknames relevant to their campaigns or local communities, rather than the direct name of the city (Ann Arbor and Sarasota, we’re looking at you!). Based on this, we’re filtering at more detailed levels to make sure we’re capturing that information and reporting accurately. We invite any city involved in the initiative NOT directly using their name for their online efforts to reach out to us (either through a comment below or through our Twitter feed – @steketeegreiner) with any specific search terms to make sure that we have your city represented properly.

Thanks! David

Evaluating event participation, and the metrics that determine success, aren’t as fuzzy as most people think. There are solid ways of measuring event success that are usable for every sized business in every sized event.

The best article I’ve found that explains key measurement metrics is The Five Key Metrics of Event Marketing. I’ve summarized the main points below.

KEY METRIC 1: TOTAL COST OF THE EVENT

Expense vs. investment. Expense is any out of pocket costs related to the event. Investment includes out of pockets plus your day-to-day overhead, including salaries of all those involved.

“Either calculation is valid. Simply be clear when you are reporting your numbers which approach you have taken, and be consistent over time.”

KEY METRIC 2: REACH AND FREQUENCY

The number of unique prospects that attend each event and if, and how often, they attend in the future. Are you communicating to your target audience and building a lasting relationship with them? Do they find your events valuable? Or do you get a bunch of tire kickers looking for a free pen or tee shirt? Maybe a tee shirt isn’t the best way to reach out to your audience…

“Tracking reach and frequency over time can help you gauge the effectiveness of your promotional efforts, as well as to assess the perceived value attendees find in your events.”

KEY METRIC 3: BUSINESS VALUES OF ATTENDEES

Knowing how much potential each prospect has can be helpful when determining the true value of an event. Getting thousands of attendees may feel like a success, but if they’re not the right audience that will bring in the money, you could be wasting your time.

“It’s one thing to know that 75 people attended your event. It’s another to know that those 75 people represent $750,000 in potential business. This number is called customer or prospect lifetime value, and can be a powerful guide in helping you determine which events — and which attendees — merit your time and budget.”

KEY METRIC 4: SHARE OF VISITS

Used to measure the number of people that attend your event compared to competing events in the industry. What makes other events successful in attracting valuable attendees from your key market? If you are attending a tradeshow as an exhibitor, defining this metric is important in knowing which events have the most value and bring in the right attendees.

“Tracking this number over time can tell you if you are gaining or losing ground to your competition for attendees’ limited time and dollars.”

KEY METRIC 5: RETURN ON INVESTMENT

Are you spending your event budget wisely? What are you truly gaining from each dollar you spend? You cannot answer either question until you define goals and establish what success means to your company for each event. Is it to maintain your space in the industry? Announce a new product or service? Gain the attention of the media? Obtain as many leads as possible whether they’re on or off strategy? Are you only interested in qualified leads? If so, what makes a lead qualified? Maybe it’s all of the above…

Regardless of what determines the success of your event, it is very important to define it at the beginning, and communicate it to all who will be involved in the event (from planning to execution).

Of course, if you need a hand, feel free to give us a call.

Background: Weekend event, 20 bloggers, free reign to speak their minds

Tools Used to measure: Radian6, Techrigy, Alexa rankings, Compete scores, Google Alerts (RSS feeds), Tweet Search, and a couple of our own “secret sauce” tools

Approach: Develop a dashboard and knowledge management platform for each stakeholder which would compile key metrics and data points into a usable format to provide relevant intelligence on the success/failure of the project

Key Metrics:

Bloggers: sentiment, social channel followers (Twitter, FB, Blog), monthly impressions, actual posts, tone of posts

Brand: Share of discussion (# of mentions +/- and neutral) for week of and following, competitive discussions, social channel performance (FB, Twitter, YouTube) by fan base and commentary

Executive summary: Total impressions by channel, total mentions, tone of mention, total share of conversation bench-marked against previous weeks performance as well as competition, and most importantly, the ability for the bloggers to actually fuel and continue on discussions with their base.

Phase II – Phase II really started with the last point I mention in the executive summary. The ability to understand and measure the influence blogger’s ability to open and maintain dialogues with their fan base. This is an area that moves past the traditional CPM and really gets at the heart of a quality and return of a discussion (challenge of measuring the value of a two way discussion).

Here’s my latest approach in translating quality into impressions. I’ve structured it this way to try to reverse engineer an approach that allows my client to still communicate using the CPM terminology and provides more clarity in defining a baseline for future events. This is an on-going process… I’m open for dialogue here.

(Sum of Quality Score Multiples/Number of Comments) = Average Multiplier; Average Multiplier X Total Number of Web Impressions = Total Quality Impressions (still can be used in the traditional CPM model then)

Comment Quality score is measured as an index. Range of 0-5.

0 score gets a .75 multiple = negative comment (1 negative comment would equal an impression of .75)

1 score gets a 1 multiple = comment is minimal but positive response

2 score gets a 1.05 multiple = comment is information neutral to positive with industry mention however no brand mention

3 score gets a 1.1 multiple = comment includes a question related to industry

4 score gets a 1.2 multiple = comment includes reader expressing a positive attitude towards industry without brand specific mention

5 score gets a 1.25 multiple = comment includes a positive response directly related to the brand of their products or the reader expresses information in trying their product or the reader “reblogs” the post

In summary, positive conversations surrounding a brand would increase the total number of “impressions” considered for the CPM calculation and ultimately provide a better understanding of value.

In the case of the event we were managing, we found that we were able to attribute additional impressions and bring down the CPM slightly (still high – ranging from $300-$700). Considering the niche reach of the outlets, that isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Brian Steketee

It’s a multi-dimensional world out there. The relational database is so yester-year.