Well, Twitter has done it again. Within a few short months this relative newbie on the social media scene has gone from having a modest following to being a decidedly mainstream Web attraction. Of course, this rush of new followers probably would not have occurred without rampant media exposure and an army of high-profile celebrity users. And getting featured by Oprah doesn’t hurt…

The result of all this attention, according to just-released April 2009 U.S. comScore Media Metrix data, was another huge jump in visitors to Twitter.com during the month. Its 17 million U.S. visitors in April represents an 83% gain vs. March and a 3,000% gain vs. year ago. In fact, the past two months have seen such a flood of traffic to Twitter.com that it has more than quadrupled its audience during that brief period of time, literally unprecedented growth for a site whose audience already numbers in the millions.

See Twitter’s incredible growth curve over the past year below - the textbook version of a “hockey stick”:

What remains to be seen is whether or not this inundation of new users will remain loyal to the technology once they’ve tried it. Much like a new product on the supermarket shelves, people are willing to give Twitter a taste to see if the experience matches the advertising (or in this case, the media buzz). The question, of course, is how many of these trial Tweeters will convert into regular, long-term users. Some will do so after their first experience, while others will probably take awhile to acclimate. Some probably won’t jump in head first right away, but will eventually give in as people in their existing social networks adopt the technology. And, some will try but will not become repeat users. Ultimately, only time will tell what Twitter’s loyal user adoption curve looks like and comScore will be here to report what transpires…

During my keynote at the Search Insider Summit in Captiva last week, I presented some data on trends in search activity that I thought might be of interest to readers of this blog.

I first showed that the number of search queries continues to grow strongly, up 68% over the past two years:

However, if one looks at the number of paid clicks, the growth rate is a lower 18%, which raises the question: why have paid clicks grown 3x slower than the total number of queries?

The reason appears to be that the ad coverage (i.e. the percent of search results pages with a paid ad) has dropped from 64% to 51% of searches.

This, in turn, raises the question: why would ad coverage decline? The first hypothesis – that the search engines have been working hard to improve the searcher experience and reduce the importance of less relevant advertisers – has been widely cited, and I believe is the main driver. To help confirm this hypothesis we looked into the rate at which searchers clicked on paid ads and found that the rate hasn't changed.

But, I also find a second hypothesis to be particularly intriguing. An analysis of comScore data shows that search queries are actually getting longer and that as searchers become more experienced they are using more words per search query. And this apparently reduces the likelihood that an advertiser has bid to have his/her ad included in the results page from these longer queries, due to paid search advertising strategies that limit ad coverage, such as Exact Match, Negative Match, and bid management software campaign optimization.

Fascinating.

If Americans’ search behavior is any indication which way they’re leaning towards voting for the next American Idol, it looks like it’ll be a runaway victory for Adam Lambert. Compared to other contestants Kris Allen and Danny Gokey, Lambert generated a whopping 78% of all searches for the three finalists during the week ending May 10, according to comScore Marketer data. (Incidentally, Females Age 35-64, who apparently have a track record of predicting the annual Idol winner, gave Lambert a slightly higher 80% of the vote.)

Okay, so maybe predicting that overwhelming favorite Lambert as the eventual victor isn’t exactly going out on a limb. But the search behavior also seems to have picked up on an interesting trend, which is that it shows Kris Allen narrowing the gap considerably with Danny Gokey from the week ending May 3 to the week ending May 10. Certainly an interesting indicator in hindsight considering that the dark horse leapfrogged Gokey to make the final two.

45 degrees C, 3850 kms, heatwaves, sleepless nights and plenty of the shady situations. Sounds awful, but it was the best two weeks, ever. It wasn't just an adventure through India in a crappy rickshaw, it was a cultural and historical excursion, a culinary extravaganza, an opportunity to speak to & touch the real India - its people, and a rendezvous with mother herself in all her glory of peaks, rivers and oceans. And of course the 150cc 2 stroke rickshaw with a max speed of 50kmph (on flat land and no wind) by 3 guys with no auto mechanic skills, made it an adventure.

We, The Thamizh Siblings went into this trip not knowing what to expect and came out on the other side speechless. Everyone asks us : "Tell me all about the trip". "Awesome", we would say. But, you had to be there with us. Even the photos and mobile phone videos wouldn't do justice.

But that's not going to deter us from sharing a few tips from the road...!

A few words about blessings and thanks
We were so lucky to be able to do this trip. From the generous donations to our charities SOS Children’s Villages and FrankWater by our corporate sponsor comScore, friends and family, to the rishis, mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters and so on, from home and on the road, we were blessed to reach the end safely. With these generous contributions we were able to support some charities who do brilliant work in India and therefore add meaning to our adventure. We thank everyone for that opportunity.

1. Get connected
We had an Airtel SIM card already - voice coverage about 95% of the time! Data coverage is available near big urban centres. We got our number in Chennai(Madras) and they have regional locks and so twitter wouldn't work. But hey we could text our fingers off!

2. Ride it like a pro
Roll on, roll off on the throttle. Take a 30 min break every 3-4 hours. It'll keep the piston, the engine from blowing up. Wear a kerchief around your neck. Curse every now and then. Pro.

3. Be prepared
With a 6 litre tank, we had to refuel quite often. Get a jerry can to take you across the desert. We left things to the last moment and had to suffice with a plastic 10L jar. This meant over the course of the trip petrol started eating the plastic and we’d spend our days sniffing petrol. Also get a funnel, or like us use plastic water bottles to make a ghetto funnel. Get simple spare parts and learn how to fix them so that you don’t have to try to find help late at night when the clutch breaks in the middle of Bihar after election day. Also stash most but not all money when that happens, but do ask how much they want for their services because very often we found Indians to say 1000 when they mean to say 100. They were very nice guys though!

4. Don’t try to squeeze too much before launch day
We decided to visit Delhi before getting to Shillong. It was really fun. India is big, it takes time to get places and it is also hot. Altogether tiring. When we got to Shillong we thought of taking a tiny nap. Woke up hours later into the next morning completely missing the launch party and the chance to meet fellow teams!

5. Enjoy the curiosity
Embrace the curiousity. India is definitely an incredible place to explore and learn. So are its people. We’d always be approached with the same questions “Where are you coming from?”, “Where are you going?”, “Is this your rickshaw”. Often it’ll be followed by peeking in and checking out us and our gear. And then before you know it there is a crowd and that leads to a group picture. You’ll see a lot of stares. It can be a bit intimidating at first, but its all good! Once we start talking (or trying to) before you know it there are tea snack and nuts going around!

6. Stay hydrated
There is a need for pure water in India. It’s so easy to get duped with refilled bottles to perfection and with the heat it is important to have stock. We learned a bit late but we got it down! Cucumber and watermelons really help too!

7. The gift of Karma
Over the course of this trip we gained so much positive karma, we are still trying hard to pass it forward. While the cities can be pretty corrupt, dusty and intense, the rural (most of the land mass) areas are very calm, comforting and inviting. The people are so quick to help us. The best experience is from Madhya Pradesh when a farmer refused to let us go back on the road until we rested at his place which involved a cool well water bath, tea with milk straight from a cow, and so on. Earlier that day we met three other farmers who gave us water to drink when we had ran out – this area was very dry so water is scarce and you have to travel very far to get it.

8. It's more than a race, it's a journey. Cherish it
We really liked Bodhgaya – the birthplace of Buddhism for its calm, international and exquisite. The Varanasi early morning boat ride was very nice, and the visit to Khajuraho was very revealing! The little kids and scene of Shillong were missed and so were the dense forests of Bengal, as we went into drier zones. Fantastic sunsets, camp cooking, dhabas, truck lodges, new foods, morning sweets and lifts were other things we cherished. Central India was kind and pleasant and then we reached the beautiful Goa and set our feet in the ocean

9. Whatever happens don’t lose your map
But we did lose our map! Which was awful. This meant we had to ask people not only for directions, but the route too. Using a Hindi/Urdu lonely planet phrasebook meant sort of communicating with the locals. The biggest problem we came across was that many Indians would prefer to show a random direction instead of saying “I don’t know”! We got a lost quite a bit after this.

10. Roadkill and accidents
With so much traffic on the highways, animals are very nervous when it comes to crossing the road and often end up getting run over. Dogs who aren’t very smart when it comes to road crossing! Drivers also over extend themselves which results in a lot of accidents due to drunk driving and mostly fatigue.

Read our unedited blog posts from the road
See our pictures: from Shillong, Meghalaya to Colva Beach, Goa
We appeared in the Times of India | Goa.

Well, it looks like I came up empty on my prediction about the winner of American Idol last week, so I’ve done some follow up investigation to see where I might have erred. A few qualitative points have come to light that may help with future search-related prognostication:

• The Buzz Factor: Search totals can be a good predictor of interest, but analysis of the terms themselves and the buzz associated with each contestant are also important. Adam Lambert is a polarizing media figure, and the analysis of the positive and negative type of terms used by the Searchers tell an interesting story about the psyche of the American Idol audience. With the South traditionally leading the voting in American Idol, the socially conservative/small town element of the audience was heavily involved. Mark Walsh of Mediapost commented on this approach taken by the folks over at OneRiot, who accurately predicted the outcome.
• The Gokey Factor: I’m kicking myself after the fact for not making the connection.....with only 1 million votes separating Kris and Adam towards the end, the Gokey voters would inevitably throw their support behind Kris for the Finale matchup. Again, I bring this back to the similar style of Kris and Danny Gokey vs. Adam Lambert, the agreed upon “patently original” performer for this season’s show, and if there is anything that we know about crowd behavior, they often fall in line with that which is closest and most familiar.
• The Democracy Factor: Okay, so I wasn’t factoring in that voting for American Idol is not exactly a democratic process. Each fan has the ability to phone-in as many votes as they want, and totals can potentially be further manipulated by the use of auto-dialers. I won’t go so far as to say the system is rigged, but it can certainly be influenced in a way that might not reflect the actual sentiment of the voting public.

So, lessons learned for the next time that comScore lets me be so bold as to prognosticate on the basis of search activity. As Gian Fulgoni said to me the other day, while smiling broadly, “Forecasting is always difficult, but especially when it concerns the future.” ;)

I was a member of the measurement panel at the IAB Social Media Conference recently, and we talked a lot about the social media ‘scorecard.’ There were a variety of perspectives represented as Bryan Wiener, CEO of 360i, moderated the discussion between Liza Hausman of Gigya, Keith Kilpatrick from Buzzlogic, Jonathan Carson from Nielsen Online and me. We all agreed that we wanted the discussion to be practical and useable.

I imagined the social media scorecard in vivid color, its clarity overwhelmingly simple, something marketers and agencies could put in their pockets and use immediately when next evaluating the effectiveness and efficiency of social media channels in an upfront media mix. Sounds easy, right?

Enabling quality conversation (ranked on a ten point scale) with my consumers? Check. Possessing pass-along value that inspires influencers to inspire others about my core brand message, directly relatable to product sales? Check. The fundamental elements of virality, guaranteed to spread like wildfire through cyberspace? Check. Keep full control of my brand? Double-check.

Now, I am fully in favor of scores and scorecards. Without them, how can you know if your efforts are effective, or if you are winning or losing? But while we all agreed that measurement must be the cornerstone, we also recognized that there is no silver bullet. Especially in emerging areas that are still defining the rules of the game, where many marketers are still deciding whether to get in the game to begin with.

So let’s put away our scorecards and magic bullets just for a little while, and talk about what we need to know to get started.

Three Useful Points to Consider in Social Media Marketing and Measurement

1) Clarity is key: define your success
As with all media, before diving in, ask yourself: what will it take for you to look back at the campaign and say that it was successful? Perhaps it will be based on the number of coupons downloaded, the number of 18-24 year olds who become fans on Facebook, CRM signups or overall brand effectiveness measures and attitudinal shifts… Only you know what is important, but whatever it is, be clear about it so you can prepare to measure it, and adjust your campaign on the fly if need be.

2) Keep measurement simple and familiar

To break this down, separate quantity questions from quality questions. On the quantity side, keep it simple: know how many people you want to reach, and then measure how many you actually reached post-campaign. Make these metrics as familiar as possible – if they are expressed in comparable terms to other parts of your campaign, they are more likely to be tangible and accepted. Reach and frequency metrics are not going away any time soon.

The quality question allows for a bit more creativity – here is where you can bring in ‘engagement’ and otherwise tie in your KPI’s from (1) back into your web program. Basically, you are building a track record with your brand and making the case that there were quality elements which underscored that social media marketing was a good choice. Depending on what your success markers were, these metrics will vary – but can range from ‘branding” metrics (e.g. as measured through comScore’s Brand Metrix studies) all the way to the lift in offline purchasing.

3) Control is not the point, listening is

We know, we know… this is a scary premise. But even the best clarity, choreography and execution cannot completely guarantee control in a social media campaign. So let’s imagine for a moment that we can suspend our disbelief about relinquishing control and needing to communicate, and focus instead on how to be heard -- because attention, after all, is a scarce commodity. How might this be valuable, and what is the added value of being able to listen directly, and adjust when needed?

The value proposition here is also the trade-off – this is two-way, and frequently one-to-many. Listen to the good. Respond quickly to the bad, and respond even faster to the ugly. Enable the conversation, rather than attempting to put it in a chokehold. People are talking about your brand anyway, so you may as well get down in the weeds and know what’s going on.

And don’t forget to bring your scorecard with you.

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