The Science of Communicating & Marketing Your Business

Anyway, this post is part 2 in an arc on NextStage Evolution's Evolution Technology reports. This time we're considering Experience.

This arc got it's impetus from an email exchange I was having with a frequent reader that also had its origins in the Why my Juanita Bynum post failed to get traction post and the resulting correspondence between WindKiller and myself.

Funny how many things are growing out of that post.

The reader wrote "Maybe it is my lack of analytics knowledge, but if I am on the main page for your blog, can you tell if I am a visitor reading the Bynum posting or a visitor reading a different post? If not, how would you differentiate between which posting attracted the most readers?"

I responded that I don't know how web analytics handles this. NextStage's Evolution Technology^TM (ET)handles it with no problem.

The reader then wrote "My guess would be they tell you to make sure every article has a click through requirement, so they can measure/tally that (or tally the subsequent page view). I feel a little silly calling a "+1" a measurement. That's why my guess was that if your blog was not using ET, the 'measurement' may be less informative than those to which you are accustomed."

This is both accurate and goes to something I've been pondering for a while. I was once told it's better to have posts that require the "Continue Reading" link than not because doing so "will increase traffic".

Really?

The reader is also correct that I find the above concept and the numbers it may provide less informative than the information to which I am accustomed. What I'll do at this point is share some of the things Evolution Technology tells me about visitors to the BizMediaScience site. You'll need to decide for yourself how useful this type of information would be to you (and no, I'm not sharing everything ET tells us. I'd like to keep my competitive advantage, if you don't mind).

The important thing to know is that ET doesn't ask questions, ask visitors to fill in forms, poll other internet databases, use permanent cookies, etc. ET works like any good cultural anthropologist does; by observing. You can read more about how ET works in Reading Virtual Minds.

And with that paid political advertisement out of the way, here we go with Experience...

The image on the right is one of our results charts (the actual chart is much bigger). What this chart is showing is that most people are enjoying their time reading my blogs (the green) over the past seven days. A small number of visitors aren't having a good experience (red) and a slightly larger number are indifferent (yellow).

It's nice to know you work is appreciated, better to know that appreciation is growing. This image is last week's chart of the same information. Yes, readers seem to think we're looking better all the time.

People will ask, "How do you know this if you don't ask visitors, use focus groups, have them fill out forms, have them in some behavioral index, ...?"

My response on a good day is a detailed explanation of what NextStage does and the sciences involved. On a mediocre day it's "What? You mean you can't do this?"

Measuring experience -- for that matter, measuring just about everything NextStage measures to generate its reports and advise clients -- is remarkably straightforward. Some of it was explained in the Noisy Data arc, some of it's explained on our website on the FAQs page.

(more to follow)

Please contact NextStage for information regarding presentations and trainings on this and other topics.

Upcoming Conferences:

• IMedia Brand Summit on 9-12 Sept 07
• XChange on 20-21 Sept 07
• DC Emetrics Summit on 14-17 Oct '07
• Society for New Communications Research Annual Research Symposium & Awards Gala on 5-6 Dec 07 in Boston.