EmersonCollegeAnalytics

The purpose of this Blog is to give students a place on the web to explore and experiment with online behavior, how we track and how we measure it.

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Nielsen’s First Comparable Metrics Report

By Chris Sylvia

We all know Nielsen. If you need data collection and reporting, whether it’s music or television, you go to Nielsen. Before today, Nielsen’s reports were usually based on a single media platform, such as television. However, today they released their first comparable metrics report.

The comparable report is supposed to tell you what kind of platforms adults are using and what kind of media content they are engaging in. The three main attributes Nielsen is measuring by is age, race, and ethnicity. Some of the data they’ve collected over the year in interesting, specifically that television is currently at 416 minutes/day for adults aged 18 and older. I’m not going to go into the specific data collected in the report, you can find that out by reading the report yourself.

However, I will tell you why we want to know this kind of information. If you’re a marketer, Nielsen is presenting you with an even more in-depth look into the consumption of media in America, which is important to know as someone who is a marketer. In addition, this information is helpful for health researchers because they get a deeper look into the sedentary lifestyle of the majority of Americans, and they can use the data to produce solutions to our media-addicted lives.

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Times Are Changing: Political Polling

By Josie Snider

Changes in data collection trends are interesting and could potentially impact the state of the political system itself.

The ease and capabilities of web analytics are transforming yet another realm - political polling.Two key tides are turning in predictive political data collection - online polling is on the rise while phone polling is steeply declining.

“According to the Pollster database of Republican primary polls, there have been nearly as many Internet surveys as there have been traditional, live-interview telephone surveys, 90 versus 96. By this time in 2011, opinion researchers had conducted just 26 online surveys and more than 100 live-interview polls.”

These trends clearly correspond with the communication tactics used by Americans, according to Pew research 87% of Americans now use the Internet, enabling pollers to reach a larger portion of the population than were ever accessible by phone.

With this opportunity come many threats to research, including the accuracy of the polling and how the sampling is done. Donald Trump is doing better in online polls than in traditional polls, and researchers are not sure what to attribute this to, and which method is truly more representative. This relates to Internet polling’s inability to sample the population quite as randomly as choosing random phone numbers allows for.

The psychological principles that apply to any type of data collection apply to polling, and can illuminate the differences in results. For example, respondents often feel more comfortable responding honestly to an anonymous online poll than to a person on the phone.

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Blackboard: Analytics in Education

by: Elijah Swan

When I first came to college back in 2011, Blackboard was the main hub of information for all of my classes. I had constant access to an updated calendar of assignments, my grades, and any files I needed to complete assignments. As I was notorious for not writing things down or losing handouts in high school, I thought this was the greatest invention of the 21st century! Well, I thought that until I realized that a few professors were using the platform for evil. They were keeping tabs on the amount of time (or lack-thereof) that students were spending on Blackboard, and then nagging the hell out of us when we didn’t open online mandatory readings before class. Blackboard essentially became the best and worst thing to happen to me in my early college career. So what does this have to do with analytics? This blog post covers a software within Blackboard called Blackboard Analytics.

What is it?

Blackboard Analytics is a system for data warehousing and analysis with integrated applications for educational institutions to analyze student numbers, class scheduling, and financial information. It is meant to:

Increase student retention

Boost enrollment

Ensure fiscal success for students (but more for themselves)

Improve level of student engagement

To give you an idea of how powerful Blackboard is – Blackboard is the most used learning management system in the world with its software and services are used by approximately 17,000 schools and organizations in 100 countries.

75% of colleges and universities in the United States use Blackboard.

The sheer amount of information that the company has accumulated on educational institutions as a whole is ridiculously huge. And it is not like they are new to the game; Blackboard has been around since 1997.

As a conspiracy theorist (and a pessimist), I think that Blackboard will soon begin playing a role in the college application process. If a huge majority of U.S. students are using Blackboard throughout every single class in high school, then Blackboard has the ability to accumulate vast amounts of information on their behavior and motivation level. This new layer could be the boost that colleges want to make their application process more thorough and efficient. What do you think?

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Analytics While You Drive

By: Alex Parish

There’s a new driving app on the market called Dash. It’s an app that gives drivers real-time analytics data on their driving habits, car problems, and more.

There’s two versions of the app targeting different types of drivers. The first is called Dash XL and it’s geared towards truck drivers and fleet managers. Dash XL functions when an OBD hardware device is plugged into each truck to record analytics data.

Then, the data is sent over to the fleet managers. Dash XL will also monitor distance and driving conditions to help avoid accidents by letting fleet managers know when a driver is fatigued and needs to switch off with someone.

The second app is called Dash IQ and targets large organizations and government agencies. Currently, both the Department of Transportation and AllState have gotten on board with promoting the product. Allstate even lets drivers save 30% on insurance if they install the app.

Dash may have just launched but there are already over 300,000 drivers using the app in over 100 countries. This app could really make a difference in improving safe driving habits worldwide.

Sources: Smart Driving App Dash Expands Into The Trucking And Analytics Business

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12 Things Only SEOs Understand

by Amanda Tessier

1. People will ask you what SEO stands for

Search engine optimization

2. Your familiar members will mix up the acronym

SOE?

3. Other marketers think you’re trying to game the system

My job is real, I swear!

4. Sometimes you’re at war with paid search

Why are you allocated $35k/month towards paid search and won’t spend $200 on SEO software?

5. Sometimes you’re BFFs with paid search

If we bid on branded terms, we should see a 20% lift across traffic

6. Everyone will ask you to look at your website

Should I put a different keyword here? What should my header be? What’s a meta description?

7. When I say everyone, I mean your hair stylist, your friend developing an online business, your uncle…

Yes, all of these people have asked me

8. You tell your clients it will take at least 3-6 months for results...

...yet they are angry when nothing moves at month 3 (or worse, week 3…)

9. The job descriptions are all over the place (sometimes even sexist)

SEO Specialist, Digital Strategist, Digital Marketer, Search Engine Marketing

10. You think Rand Fishkin is the cool kid

Have you seen Whiteboard Fridays? They make the last day of the work week even better!

11. Hiten Shah is at the cool kids’ table too

Pretty much everything this guy writes is gold

12. So what do you do at work…?

Nobody really knows, not even me. Just a lot of Excel.

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Grand Finale

By Kayla  All we’ve got left for this semester is final week. In 14 days, we’ll all proudly say we made it out alive. Some of us will even be graduates. (Me!) (YIKES) My sister-in-law is a brilliant copywriter, and when I’m logical, I aspire to be one, too. Recently, she shared this article with me & I think it’s a great reprise from some of my earlier posts - one last emphasis on the importance of data in any creative venture. If you aspire to become a content creator - in whatever respect - prepare to become a RoboEditor.  “We need to become a very specific creature: half editor, half data scientist—someone whose data analysis skills fuse seamlessly with editorial judgment. Like RoboCop, but with more creativity and less killing.”

Content.ly produces wonderful content, duh, and this article lives up to its name. Discusses the combination of algorithms and the human brain. Though many data-lovers assume that the most powerful tool is data, Contently reminds us that data becomes powerful once combined with a human brain. It challenges young creators to get beyond Google Analytics or general programming; we must train our minds to understand its limits, lean on data’s boundlessness, and allow it to combine for incredible content Author Joe Lazauskas writes (more clearly than I ever could),  “If you work in editorial and data isn’t a big part of your life, I would join the chorus and politely suggest you get your shit together. Yes, someone with superb editorial instincts is still incredibly valuable. No algorithm will ever beat a great writer, editor, and thinker. But the smart use of data will make that great editor even better, and not leave him playing at a disadvantage against lesser talents.” If that pep talk didn’t appeal to you, here are the juicy numbers on content strategy and why you should care. I highly advise you to check out infographic from Contently & then get to work before you graduate, too. 

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Fake YouTube views no longer work

By Scott Isbell

Yes, it is true.  YouTube has caught up to the tricks people have played for years to get fake views on the world’s most visited website.  The solution?  GUERRILLA MARKETING AND ANALYZING YOUR AUDIENCE.

Here is a example screenshot of one of my videos that I did heavy guerrilla marketing with.  

The way I achieved this was by sending the link to all of my friends (all 1,000+ contacts in my phone) and posted daily on all of my social media channels.  I also boosted through Facebook with a small amount of paid advertising, but overall, this was mostly grassroots done.

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BounceFlight

http://betalist.com/startups/bouncefightBounceFlight is a new web analytics startup that will track visitors movements on a person's website. BounceFlight will track the overall behavior of a user. The company states that they will help abandoning visitors become paying customers. BounceFlight has a couple key qualities. Exit Intent Technology, which allows to determine the moment a visitor attempts tp leave your page a trigger an instant message. Analytics and Conversion Tracking, which allows you to track active marketing campaigns and their results. BounceFlight is a great tool for anyone with an online presence.

resources: https://bouncefight.com/

http://betalist.com/startups/bouncefight

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Tagging Done Right

Megan Doherty| MK 334

In web analytics tags on a page serve as a method to track website activity. Tagging a website can seem like a daunting task, or even a tedious one, and there isn’t just the initial tagging, but a company should continue to manage their tags with some frequency. Tags are important for making pages accessible. They help to optimize the way in which customers use a website. Upkeep for managing a website’s tags involves A. making sure pages are properly tagged, and B. Making sure the tags for each page align with the overall goal of the website. JavaScript tagging is the easiest form of tagging webpages.

Making sure pages are properly tagged is a difficult task at some companies. If a website is constantly being updated it can be incredibly difficult to keep up with which pages are tagged, and what they are tagged with. If pages aren’t properly tagged it can result in poor website traffic, and inaccurate information on user behaviors. HUB-SCAN is a software that allows you to check if your website is properly tagged. HUB-SCAN will filter through all the pages of your website, and notice pages that are either missing tags or don’t have the number of tags that they really should.

Tealium is a software that focuses on searching your website to make sure that tags that are in place are the right ones to have for that page. It also makes sure that the overall collection of tags for the website align with the overall goal of the website.

So, go ahead and tag away.

http://www.hub-scan.com/why-hubscan-130-video/?gclid=CNS98Mz4tMkCFQseHwod5fQAHg

http://tealium.com/resources/boost-digital-intelligence-with-tag-management/

http://tealium.com/resources/the-roi-of-tag-management/

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An App To Protect You From Apps

By Josie Snider

There is increasing paranoia lately about the information websites, and particularly apps, are collecting - and reasonably so. Most of us have downloaded apps that immediately require we grant them access to our contacts, Facebook, camera, and even our location. I usually feel a moment of slight discomfort when being asked to provide the essence of my personhood to a cellphone application that I probably don’t even really want, need, or know much about. Alas, the period of trepidation lasts only a few seconds and I give in to technology’s demands.

A new app is setting out to protect your information, or at least let you know when it’s being compromised. ReCon (which upon searching for I found shares a name with a two-star rated gay fetish app) “analyzes your network traffic to tell if personal information is being transmitted, and it doesn't even need to know what is your personal information to work. It detects device/user identifiers used in tracking, geolocation leaks, unsafe password transmissions, and personal information such as name, address, gender, and relationship status.”

The technology is coming out of our home city of Boston, from Northeastern University professor David Choffnes, who recently released a study showing that around half of the top rated 100 apps “on both iOS and Android, leak device information, and dozens share user details or location with third parties.”

The application makes information available on a private web page, which allows user feedback to report if the leaks found were important, and whether they should modify or block them.

As its in his infancy, ReCon isn’t very user-friendly and requires a decent amount of web aptitude to install and use, but demonstrates great potential for future web safety and protection against unauthorized sharing of private information.

Sources:

http://www.nbcnews.com/tech/security/recon-app-watches-your-other-apps-leaked-private-info-n465196

http://recon.meddle.mobi/index.html

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Analytics and Rivalry

Megan Doherty| MK 334

As we approach Thanksgiving, let’s take a moment to appreciate sibling rivalry. There’s moms favorite, Dad’s favorite, and the one who is constantly being compared to the other two. When you aren’t the clear favorite it can give you quite the competitive streak. That’s not untrue amongst companies either.

IBM Digital Analytics perhaps had this in mind when they set up industry comparisons as part of their analytic software. IBM Digital Analytics lets you set up benchmarks to compare to industry leaders in your market. IBM focuses on sixteen different industries ranging from metals and mining to travel and transportation. IBM’s specific focus on 16 industries allows them to provide depth in their analysis of web analytics. What IBM offers that others don’t is their own industry experience in the markets that they provide analysis for.

Alexa is a free analytics tool that provides some data on competitors. That said, the free version is not always that thorough, and unlike the IBM software it doesn’t provide information in the context of your industry. On the other hand, Alexa does have a tool that narrows down which websites are worth your attention.  They do this based off of criteria you input. Similar to the IBM software, Alexa allows you to compare benchmarks between sites.

 At the end of the day, both Alexa and IBM Digital Analytics both have their advantages.

http://searchengineland.com/web-analytics-software-comparison-identifying-the-right-web-analytics-tools-for-your-business-149373

http://www.alexa.com/

http://www.ibm.com/analytics/us/en/industry/

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Pabst Blue Ribbon: How this Old Beer Company Stays Hip

by: Elijah Swan

Ah! There is nothing like cracking open a can of watery PBR at an off-campus Emerson party. Actually, I can’t lie to you guys. I hate Pabst Blue Ribbon beer. Nonetheless, my blog post is going to be talking all about it.

First, a little history - Pabst Blue Ribbon was founded in 1844 by a German immigrant named Jacob Best. He and his sons produced 300 barrels of lager their first year out of Milwaukee, Wisconsin at an alehouse they called Empire Brewery.  A little later on, Jacob’s son, Phillip, renames the company the Phillip Best Company and his son-in-law, Fred Pabst, buys stake in the the brewery. As you can guess, Fred Pabst takes over the Phillip Best Company. In 1889, he changes the name of the company to Pabst Brewing Company. The history of the company essentially twists and turns as different beers come out. The Pabst Brewing Company even attempts to go into the cheese business for awhile. The name of the company changes one last time in 1898 to its current name: Pabst Blue Ribbon. If there is anything you got out of this little summary, it should be this: the Pabst Blue Ribbon company is a whopping 170-years old!

How does such an old beer company stay hip in this day-and-age? High-tech analytics. Pabst Blue Ribbon began using IBM’s predictive analytics platform in 2013 to track sales, define different business approaches, and well, beat the competition. In the last couple of years they have managed to streamline their business. Accounting processes that once took months, now takes days. Beyond monthly forecasts, PBR has implemented weekly forecasts that support demand and inventory planning even as the company works under a three-tier system (with PBR selling to distributors, distributors selling to retailers, and retailers selling to customers).

For PBR, there is no shooting into the dark and hoping to come out successful on the other end; they are constantly gaining valuable insights through analytics, and making educated changes to their business. Could this old beer company last another 170 years?

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FRROLE: Helpful Tool

Veronica Gonzalez

When you really think about it, how many businesses actually understand their target audience when it comes to developing new products or marketing those products or services to potential customers? As marketers, that is our job; it is crucial for us to understand consumers’ behaviors.

As most of us know, today’s consumers have changed dramatically in how they choose what brands to purchase. That is why businesses who fail to understand their consumers are not able to connect or engage with their audience and lose many potential customers. However, with today’s technology, there are many tools that can help companies and us marketers understand consumers better.

Frrole is a social data service company that significantly understands the users behind social conversations. It helps media and brands discover, filter, and integrate deep insights from Twitter and, just recently, from Facebook conversations. The social analytic tool has the ability to analyze hundreds of millions of universal data sets and make them available via its data feeds and dashboard applications.

By using the deep insights of this analysis, a brand would be able to understand how consumers in its industry and segment have changed over time and what do the current breed of its consumers speak about and, maybe even, prefer and intend to buy.

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Google Analytics Dashboard Introduces Calculated Metrics

Veronica Gonzalez 

Google has introduced Calculated metrics, a new beta feature for Google Analytics. Calculated Metrics has moved from Closed to Open Beta allowing its users to insert custom metrics derived from existing Google Analytics metrics. 

The feature also gives you greater flexibility in deriving insights by allowing you to perform basic calculations on metrics without having to exit the report to export data into Excel or another external program. 

This feature may sound similar to data import, however, the difference is that data import adds data alongside the metrics in a report or graphs. Calculated metrics takes this a step further; it not just adds a new data source, but also brings in a calculation that complements existing metrics. 

You can find the feature here: 

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H-CI: Your Future Job with Web Analytics

Megan Doherty| MK 334

H-CI or Human-Computer Interaction Research is, unsurprisingly, the study of how people interact with technology. It first was viewed as an area of learning in the 1980s. H-CI researchers will focus on the intended purpose of the technology, and monitor how people actually use it. From there they will design changes that make technology easier to use and more efficient. How does this relate back to web analytics? A sub-topic H-CI is web browser interfaces.

One way in which H-CI implements web analytics is by looking at the placement of key buttons. Crazy Egg analytics has click based heat maps. Understanding where on the page people are clicking can help to pinpoint which buttons are important and where to place them. Additionally, Crazy Egg has scroll mapping. Scroll mapping can be beneficial for figuring out the best arrangement of information on a website. You can see exactly how far people are getting before they leave the site.

Another way in which analytic tools can help with H-CI comes after the research stage of Human-Computer Interaction. The next step is the design. Google Analytics, along with several other analytic programs, allow you to do A/B testing. They filter website visitors to the two versions of the website, and compare a goal that is set by the designer. This can show a clear picture of which design is more effective for its purpose.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human%E2%80%93computer_interaction

www.CrazyEgg.com

https://www.google.com/analytics/standard/features/

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Google’s Holiday Shopping Predictions

By: Alex Parish 

Google released their holiday shopping predictions today and it’ll be interesting to see if any of them end up coming true.

This is the first time that Google is releasing offline analytics data to the public that was collected from November through December last year. They gathered everything from mobile devices with location services turned on and tracked all foot traffic. They used this data to create a helpful index that shows predictions for the upcoming holiday season based on store type.

In addition, now when you search for a restaurant, store, or other location to go to, Google will shows you daily predictions for the busiest time based on the foot traffic data that they’re collecting in real-time.

If you’re planning on going Black Friday shopping, stick with going early in the morning or late in the evening. Google advises not going anywhere between 2-4pm because the data indicates that those will be the busiest hours. Last minute shopping on Christmas Eve on the other hand, shouldn’t be a problem because foot traffic is predicted to be significantly lower.

 Google’s data also shows that about 82% of shoppers use their phones to look up product reviews (primarily on YouTube) in stores before making a purchase.

If you want to avoid the chaos that holiday shopping brings about, consider joining the mere 30% of consumers who do most of their shopping online instead of waiting out in lines.

Sources: Google Shows Offline Analytics Capabilities With Holiday Store Traffic Data Google is watching: Navigating holiday shopping

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Socially Responsible Big Data

Savannah Gramann

I would feel remissed if I did not not give attention to the global events that have occurred the past couple of weeks. Like many of my peers, my news feeds for Twitter and Facebook during this time have been flooded with tragedy and often times negative stereotyping and sentiments. I’d be lying if I said I have not felt a sense of discouragement for the future of this world. Events, like Syrian Refugee crisis, are prone to stirring up feelings of despair in humanity.

A month or so ago, I had come across an article (while searching for analytic’s blog topics). It had been written on September 22nd, prior to the tragedies in Paris and Beruit, and was titled “We Should Have Seen This Refugee Crisis Coming”. The article, written by Rana Novak, brought up some interesting points about our future in regards to big data. The term has certainly been thrown around a lot and been both praised and criticized for the potential it holds for predictive analytics, real time analysis, etc. When the refugee crisis began a majority of leaders responded in a “wow we don’t know where this came from” manner, when, in fact, Rana points out that the refugee crisis is by no means “out of the blue”. And she’s right the “country conflict erupts, then citizens flee” model is not a new one. We are familiar with this pattern and in an age of innovation and such advanced technology - it is somewhat disheartening to see the type of innovation implemented into Netflix recommendations while the global community has yet to take advantage of such technologies. Rana Novak ends the piece on an important note - that with all the means available to the global community, we have an “obligation to use technology in a globally responsible manner”. 

This isn’t meant to be a soul sucking post about terrible things in the world but more-so a redirection of our innovative energies and recognizing the potential we have to make the world a better place (and to be able to see and prepare for events like Syria’s refugee crisis).

On that note since the article was written I have also come across several others highlighting the wonderful things happening between the cross section of humanitarianism and data analytics. One of which is a UN refugee portal covering Syrian refugees across Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, and Turkey. The portal has combined an extensive amount of data that allows people to view refugee demographics as well as data maps of what areas have what programs for refugees. This type of technology is incredibly helpful in being able to serve Syrian refugees in the most effective manner possible by pointing out areas that are lacking aid, which areas are concentrated with what demographic so programs can be targeted and implemented for that specific community. 

Platforms like the UN Syrian Refugee Portal give me hope in mankind's ability to innovate and serve it’s own communities. This is what more global IT organizations should be striving for, there’s a lot of room for ideas in analytics and humanity health.

Also I HIGHLY recommend : https://medium.com/@humansofnewyork/humans-of-new-york-refugee-stories-243336f4adeb#.n11v5davm