Measuring Social Media with Web Analytics at XChange Conference

Post by: Marshall Sponder – author of www.Webmetricsguru.com and frequent blogger at www.Smartmobs.com, and www.biggreenblog.com.

Recently, I wrote a post on Smartmobs.com titled Strategies for Applying Web Analytics to Social Media and mentioned the Semphonic XChange Conference on September 20th and 21st in Napa Valley, which is going to be focusing, quite a bit, on Social Media Measurement.
Manoj Jasra, the author of this blog, is also going to present at XChange, as will I (and Manoj asked me if I would be interested in posting, from time to time here at Web Analytics World …. and how could I pass this opportunity up?)

Aside from the wonderful scenery and great wine we’ll be drinking as we soak up the Northern California Sun, here’s a list of the Symphonic XChange Sessions that focus on Social Media Measurement:

• Social Network Analysis facilitated by Manoj Jasra
• Measuring Second-Life by Marshall Sponder

I’m looking forward to hearing Manoj’s presentation on Social Network Analysis … all HANDS ON Stuff …not the fluffy stuff you get at SES and Webmasterworld (recycled presentations and stories that without the actual steps and data taken)….what you get at XChange is the real stories of how it was done and how to do it …. what Web Analysts do to get the data, the issues that come up and ways to harness Web Analytics to solve business problems.

We’re also coming together to share knowledge – and I bet many attendees will share their experiences with Social Media Measurement – often we learn most by sharing and hearing what others are doing.

The subject I’m going to speak about is Second Life Metrics using a combination of of techniques and methodologies including Web Analytics (Coremetrics / Surfaid), In World Analytics (Code4Software’s V-Tracker), Online Lead Tracking (Seibel/Brio), In World Survey Data (using Questionnaires, both In World and “Punch through web forms”, Online Event Tracking and Buzz Monitoring of Second Life Events via Social Media Crawlers such as Blogpulse, Google Trends/HotTrends, to name a few.

I’ve never really been to Napa Valley before – but like I said, I love the wine, and I bet the food at COPIA http://www.copia.org/ is pretty darn good – maybe better than good.

And as many of you might know, I author http://www.webmetricsguru.com/, where I write a great deal about Second Life and other 3D Virtual Worlds as an adjunct to Web Analytics.

Also, this spring, I was elected to the Board of the Directors of the Web Analytics Association as the Director of the Social Media and Community Committee of the WAA. The Social Media Committee is working on creating a standards definition for Social Media Measurement – and if you come to the XChange Conference you get to hear all about it. We even rolled our own, white label Social Network, invite only, for members of the Social Media Committee to communicate with each other and collaborate in real time.

So, all of that, plus some neat presentations and real, hands on knowledge will be at the Semphonic XChange Conference on September 20th and 21st, which you can sign up for here, before it’s sold out.