The modern communications landscape

The modern communications landscape is a continuum.

Social media purists have argued that the world has flipped from a top-down, traditional media driven landscape to a bottom-up, social driven landscape. There is some truth to this, however it is more than offset by the influence the traditional media has over the social realm.

People tweet about what they encounter in the mass media, and the mass media reports on memes that first evolved in the social media world.

It's a continuum - the modern communications landscape ranges from real-time microblogs and status updates to long-lead print and broadcast.

While the platforms remain relatively distinct, the content, links and thoughts regularly ricochet between them in a mix of original reporting, iteration, discovery, sharing and conversation.  

Grassroots-up tends more toward short real-time communications, where top-down can take days, weeks or months.  Mainstream press delivers mass audience, while individuals may reach a small group of highly interested others.  A Twitter post can trigger broadcast coverage of a breaking issue while an article in a daily regional newspaper may spread worldwide through blogs and social networks.

People.  Press.  Brands. Perception.  It's all interconnected now, and most everything is searchable.

Measurement can be tough, but ignoring it is tougher. 

With the whole web becoming social, measurement has become somewhat amorphous as there are now a near infinite number of channels to monitor. What do you measure? Which metrics matter?

In short...it depends. A video with 100,000 views on YouTube, but which results in zero impact on your business, might be less valuable than a single Twitter message that leads to a highly positive blog post that ranks well in Google.

When measuring social media, quantitative measures are very useful to measure total reach and exposure to a message, but be aware of the widely disparate quality of such measures. YouTube counts a view whether a user watches a video over and over, or simply surfs away after ten seconds. Conversely, web analytics on a corporate blog can be very granular and paint an accurate picture of user interaction on your site.

Qualitative measures should also be factored in - media attention, user sentiment, or customer interaction may be some of the most important benefits of a campaign.

Advanced Social Media measurement - beyond the basics.

Anyone can log onto YouTube and see how many times a video has been viewed, but what about tracking converstaions across the blogosphere, Twitter, social networks, and message boards? Then how do you sysnthesize all of that information and determine ROI?

Atomic has a long track record of measuring media with a tool we developed in house. ComContextâ„¢ is Atomic's own Web-based media and blog analytics application. It provides deep visibility into the communications dynamics between sets of companies and products, surfacing keen insights for shaping strategy and channeling creativity toward achieving business objectives.

We've taken this analytics and measurement know-how and applied it to the social media realm by employing tools and methodologies to track mentions, sentiment, and trends in near real-time. This enables our clients to measure, understand, and quickly respond to conversations across multiple social media channels, including blogs, microblogs, message boards, social networks, and photo/video sharing sites.

Atomic Digital Ops 

Atomic's Digital Ops team specializes in social media, search, web marketing, multimedia, and video. We've executed for clients such as Mint.com, Verizon Wireless, Bebo, Ingres, Coupons.com, Southern Methodist University, SixApart (MovableType), Vertical Response, and LinkedIn.

Our Digital Ops team members have strong backgrounds in all these activities, with past life experience including a Gold Addy Award for a Gap Kids video campaign, CBSNews.com, SEO for clients such as Ford and GM, paid search for large e-commerce retailer Red Envelope and Boeing, and web development, analytics, and design expertise.

Need help? That's what we're here for. Feel free to reach out to us - we're happy to assist with execution or advice.

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