One tweet, the stock market comes crashing down, and we’re still debating social ROI?

Posted on April 23, 2013 by Ted Sindzinski

Here’s a chart of the DJIA from today after the Associated Press’s twitter account was hacked and a fake tweet about a White House attack put out, temporarily sending the markets plunging 130 points.

The Stock Market Crash on AP Tweet 4/23/2013 via @MikeIsaac @jlgolson @AlexJamesFitz

Sure it’s an extreme example and yes, the markets do jump on the slightest whisper, but if the entire investment community is that glued to social, to a single report from a third party source, isn’t it fair to say the every day individual might listen to the people they follow too?

Social is not about Facebook, Twitter, Google+ or any other network in particular. It’s not to chase the number of likes, fans or reposts that one can get. It’s about people’s trust. We follow our friends, our family, and people or brands that we find interesting, amusing, or credible. We see their comments time in and time out and from that all, we pick what we want to pursue. When someone we chose follow shares it’s more authentic than any random source’s tweet to us, more credible than what a brand ad could ever say and more memorable than just about any other medium. If social has enough influence, enough visibility, and enough trust to crash an entire market, even if just for a few minutes, it can sure get us to think about one logo, one purchase.

Sure we should continue to explore and quantify social ROI like we do with any other part of our business but to question it’s value… The question is how can anyone justify not participating at this point?

Redefining (Digital) Metrics in a Multi-Device World

Posted on April 16, 2013 by Ted Sindzinski

The office computer, family desktop, smartphone, tablet, ultrabook, living room tv, gym screen… As shoppers we’re surrounded by, and switching between, devices all day long and at an increasing rate. Earlier this year I wrote about the impact the explosion this multi-device behavior is having on traditional web metrics and as the number screens “gets worse” I’m circling back to the point to talk about the solutions, or at least the ones I’m aware of thus far.

Cutting to the cold hard reality, nearly everyone in your target group is using multiple devices. According to a 2012 survey of web users by Google, 90% use multiple devices at the same time to accomplish a goal, 98% use two devices in a day and the smartphone that you think stays in their pocket, it touches almost everything.

Simply put this means that what you know of your visitor from traditional analysis is entirely incomplete. The person coming to your site may have already been there a dozen times. The source you attribute their order to is probably not how they discovered you and their activity is just one of many paths they’ve taken.

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