Digital Trail

The social media data behind Eurovision 2012

James Ainsworth — Mon, 28 May 2012 11:06:47 +0000

I used SDL SM2 to examine the story behind the social media data of this year’s Eurovision Song Contest. As you can see, as pre-show favourites, Sweden held a great deal of the volume of conversation and the nature of that online chatter was extremely positive. The United Kingdom’s entry faired poorly in the final event standings [...]

MindMap: Summary of the Mike Walsh webinar for SDL on ‘Innovation’

James Ainsworth — Tue, 22 May 2012 09:32:06 +0000

If you click-through, you can view this interactive mindmap of the recent webinar by Mike Walsh for SDL on the topic of innovation. Filed under: Chaff Tagged: data, futuretainment, innovation, insights, Mike Walsh, mindmap, SDL, Social Media

The latest developments in social media

James Ainsworth — Thu, 17 May 2012 10:07:20 +0000

I recently spoke at the Bath and Bristol Marketing Network regular event and shared some of the latest research in social media. The audience was a mix of small businesses hungry for social media lead generation tips and larger businesses and agencies looking for the next trends in social and how to apply social data [...]

The social media data behind christmas

James Ainsworth — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 14:47:11 +0000

Looking at the online data behind the first week of December with the keywords ‘Christmas’ and ‘Xmas’ we can see certain interesting themes and therefore, opportunities. As you might expect, the highest mentions of the search terms are to be found on Twitter and the like but that doesn’t always mean that is where you [...]

Using social data as a predictive indicator of business functions

James Ainsworth — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 09:19:32 +0000

Lick your finger and stick it in the air to determine which direction the wind is blowing. Pick a stick from the riverside and set it adrift downstream to judge the pace of the flow. These rudimentary attempts at predicting an outcome have as much value as judging a book by its cover. Sure it [...]

The abrasive nature of Facebook’s frictionless sharing

James Ainsworth — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 12:50:51 +0000

The above is a screengrab from Facebook (with names redacted to avoid further blushing) which highlights the futility of Facebook’s new frictionless sharing system, whereby – if the app is enabled – your viewing habits on certain sites are instantly broadcast to your Facebook friends. The above incident is fairly self-explanatory but does suggest that [...]

The social media branding of Xfactor contestants

James Ainsworth — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 12:03:10 +0000

Another year and another wave of wannabes are put under the cultural microscope of The XFactor (and I love it!). Now we are down to the Finalists and the live performance shows, we will be party to three hours – every Saturday evening – of interaction on Twitter, Message Boards, Facebook and just shouting at [...]

The Open Data Movement [Infographic]

James Ainsworth — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 12:10:56 +0000

by visually via Filed under: Chaff Tagged: api, data, infographic, open data, Social Media, visual.ly

Don Draper Pitches Facebook Timeline

James Ainsworth — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 21:29:11 +0000

VIDEO EMBEDDING SUBSEQUENTLY DISABLED. VIEW HERE An excellent and wholly accurate take on the Ethos of the latest attempt by Facebook to soak up your data by piecing your entire life together through them and therefore, online. Visually, Facebook Timeline looks great. It takes a significant step away from the also ran of Google+ and [...]

What should I be measuring via social media monitoring?

James Ainsworth — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 12:56:40 +0000

‘Likes’ ‘Retweets’ and ‘Reblogs’ are all well and good as a shallow metric but not much more. Use them as a guide indicating how effective your social activity is progressing. Report and monitor the things that truly matter to your business, the deep metrics that deliver consistency of reporting and value in terms of business [...]