Some recent work yielded these four Technorati charts showing blog buzz (see right).
They were all competitors in the same industry. And yet the difference in presence in the blogosphere is quite striking. The company yielding the chart on the bottom right is using social media well, using all manner of approaches such as del.icio.us, YouTube and its own blog to create buzz.
You can see that there are smooth curves ramping up and down rather than sudden fits and starts, so there’s a ‘hedging’ effect here from using different techniques, making its buzz more stable and predictable. And it has much more blog buzz than its competitors.
Of course, as ever, so much is left unsaid. We don’t know what the sentiment behind the posts was, nor do we know how influential any of them were, or whether they signify any change in behaviour. That’s where the rest of the measurement comes in, and that’s generally where you’ll have to put in the effort of actually listening to what people are saying and responding to them.
But sometimes, charts startle me. These did. Sometimes, I swear the difference in performance in just one communications area must have a significant effect on business objectives – especially when we’re talking about a network effect in which messages cycle and pick up momentum.
The biggest thing to notice, I think, isn’t just the shape, but the associated scales. The first three charts only go up to 30 or 40 on the y-axis, the fourth goes up to 200. That’s a whole heap more buzz than one might expect if these are all category competitors (where heap = “order of magnitude”)
Are these fair comparisons? We can’t tell, really, because you haven’t shared the search criteria.
Is there any reason why you’re not saying what these charts represent? I’d be interested to see where this goes…
Yes, the difference in scales is important – I did point out that there was much more buzz. But that’s a very important point. You’re right – it is an order of magnitude. And this is why I was startled.
The comparisons *should* be fair because I’ve used the same methodology for each company – that is, identified their keywords then run these as search queries in Technorati. If they’re not then my whole monitoring scheme falls down!
And the charts represent blog buzz for ‘four companies’. I’m not saying which companies because one of them is a client and the other three are its competitors. And, again, I’m not going to say which one is my client!