In the last 10 days or so, I’ve come to learn a few things about data.
1) Data tells stories
It tells you what people are interested in, what people are talking about, and that can sometimes be a polar opposite from what your brand would like them to talk about. Dorothy, who works at a similarly data-driven company, Brandtology, tells the tale of brand mentions and searches telling the financial sector that they should sit up and pay attention. Everything is data, data, data. If you’re not plugged in, you’re losing out.
2) Data is imperfect
Dorothy and I have said this before on The GennY Podcast. As much as existing web analytics does not report statistics in the depth that people are (unreasonably) demanding, it’s still miles galaxies ahead of “faith based initiatives” as Avinash puts it:
How do you measure the effectiveness of your magazine ad? Now compare that to the data you have from doubleclick. How about measuring the ability of your TV ad to reach the right audience? Compare that with measuring reach through Paid Search (or Affiliate Marketing or …..). Do you think you get better data from Neilsen’s TV panel of between 15k – 30k US residents to represent the diversity of TV content consumption of 200 million tv watching Americans?
There is simply no comparison. So why waste our life trying to get perfect data from our web sites and online marketing campaigns? Why does unsound, incomplete, and faith based data from TV, Magazines, Radio get a pass? Why be so harsh to your web channel? Just because you can collect data here means you won’t do anything because it is imperfect?
Lesson? Give me half-sound data over guesswork any day.
Does data have a place right now?
Frankly, I’m of the personal opinion that a data-driven, results/strategy-focused mentality has yet to be the norm in organisations. It’s not always going to be this way. Sooner rather than later, people are going to tire of experimenting with the “shiny new object” and wonder just how much traction their Facebook, blog, email, search, Twitter efforts are getting for them, which they need to invest more money in and which need to go.
And the only thing that will deliver those results, is data.
In re-reading my earlier post, and certainly from some of the comments, I realise some parts of it may be sending the wrong message, so I’ll use this post to clarify some points.
1) Agendas are fine
I don’t have anything against practitioners coming with a set goal in mind. In fact, if you’re waking up at an unearthly hour to attend SMB on a Saturday morning without an agenda, you’re better off staying at home and sleeping two more hours. Go to network, to “seed” your ideas, ask people what they think about your brand, meet other people in the field and find out their obstacles, figure out which blogger you want to invite to your next event, whatever.
Hedirman asked me what I would do if I were on the other side of the fence, a company figuring out what to do and attending SMB. My response:
If I were a company trying to get my way into the scene, I think there’s no other way than to just jump head in. Definitely research. I wouldn’t just come to SMB and “observe”. I’d want to know who’s going, what they blog about, who’s relevant to my vertical, who should be a top priority to introduce myself to, so on so forth. Then I’d want to go back to the office and tell my boss “I’ve met x number of bloggers, their audiences read them because of y, I think we should do something.” I mean otherwise, I think Saturday mornings can be better spent sleeping in!
2) Sleazy corporate agendas are not
Note earlier I said “ask people what they think about your brand”, not “tell people about your brand”. There’s a difference, and most of the people who are reasonably familiar with the space will be able to tell the difference. If you want to give a spiel, save it for the proper circumstance. If you’re a new startup and someone asks you to tell them more, that’s a different story.
3) Don’t come thinking 2.5hrs at an event makes you part of the community.
This really irks me. If you really want to be involved, be involved. Meeting 20 people in the span of an afternoon and getting their namecards or a Facebook Group address, doesn’t mean you’re entitled to spam people. It’s about making connections and relationships of quality, not quantity.
4) Don’t come thinking a $500 food sponsorship is your “buy in” into the community
I’m not going to dwell on this, but I know how this works. A $500 sponsorship sounds excellent to get yourself the names, email addresses, blog addresses, twitter and plurk accounts of some of the top influencers in Singapore. Sorry, no. You want to build a houselist, go be a gold/platinum/whatever sponsor at one of the trade shows and spam everyone there.
5) How long are you going to let “new” be an excuse?
As Dorothy puts it, how long are you going to be a “curious spectator”? It’s true, you can’t jump in and be familiar with everything at once, but it doesn’t take years and it isn’t rocket science. Jump in and get your feet wet, or get out of the pool.
6) SMB shouldn’t be your only outlet
And this was the point I was principally attempting to drive across. I would like to see more corporate-led initiatives for sharing/collaboration. Something along the lines of Verge or Web Wednesdays or Third Tuesdays.
When you think about it, SMB was started by a student, a model/actress and someone who wasn’t even in the army or legal to drink at the time. Not by the people supposedly “working” in the space.
What I’m saying here is I find it a little bit strange, bordering on outrageous, that the corporates/agencies who are supposedly “in the space” are relying on an initiative driven principally by people not in the workforce to get together. Even Podcamp Singapore is driven primarily by the academic field.
It’s like if we were scientists, we’d be waiting for kids playing with “my first physics set” to organise something and go for that.
What happens if we sit up in 2009 and decide we’re too busy to continue with SMB? Or it evolves into a “bloggers only” event? Social media in Singapore crawls back to the dark ages?
Put another way, I look at the people I consider my “mentors”, though perhaps not from direct influence, the Mitch Joels, the CC Chapmans, the Joseph Jaffes, the Christopher Penns, the Brian Solises, the Andy Sernovitzes, and wonder why there are no such people in Singapore. They’re practitioners, we have practitioners. They’re out there building up the space, we’re….. not.
Thanks to Dorothy for live-blogging at Social Media Breakfast | Singapore, NTT and Brian for live Twittering and Plurking, and Kevin and Bryan for spreading the word on this side of the globe!
And of course, the rest of the team Claudia, Sherms,Sheylara, Derrick and Dorothy for getting SMB4 up and running. Crazy to think that seven months ago, it was just three people, no, three strangers trying to get SMB1 off the ground, and now we’re a full-fledged team who people believe in enough to volunteer their time to talk at a panel on Saturday morning. Utterly amazing, and it couldn’t be done without all of your support.
Although two members of the team are semi-incapacitated geographically, Social Media Breakfast | Singapore 4 (or SMB4) marches on this Saturday, the 4th of October!
There are two big changes this time around which I think are worth talking about:
1) We have a panel!
Unlike previous events, we have managed to secure five people for our panel. We realise it’s difficult for any spontaneous social media discussions to get off the ground and so have decided to give it a little nudge! The full lineup can be found at our Facebook Event page
2) We’re accepting donations!
Although the “recommended” donation is $2, it would be great if you guys (especially the working folk) can donate more to keep us going, because $2 barely covers the food. We’re running largely on “angel” money right now, and while accepting corporate sponsorship may happen down the road, we’d like to stave that off as long as we can. So please help us! All the finances will be kept on an open ledger at the Social Media Breakfast | Singapore blog.
While obviously I cannot be in attendance because I am in Kingston, I hope everyone will give Claudia, Sheylara, Dorothy and Shermeen your support, and let’s build this community together.
Although two members of the team are semi-incapacitated geographically, 
