Naturally, because of all the eyeballs, it’s seen as valuable real estate, and it’s an opportunity for exhibitionists, spammers, attention whores, and anyone else who just wants to be seen by a lot of folks, with no regard for relevance or shame.

Here are some of the off-topic tweets I noticed. Most were from spammers latching onto the trending topic to try to drive traffic to their (presumably) affiliate spam sites. It was interesting to see what kind of headlines people were using to try to trick people into clicking:

* [redacted] #blogpotomac trend? LATEST Bing HAS JUST crashed . omg http://…

* [redacted] #blogpotomac trend? A Flight has been Attacked over LONDON. . pictures have been leaked http://…

* [redacted] #blogpotomac trend? RIHANNA SEX TAPE released .. so sad http://…

* [redacted] #blogpotomac trend? its really sad that APPLE’S new tablet cost’s $1,299.. so sad http://…

So we’ve got tech, attacks, celebrity sex, and more tech. Also note the use of the URL shorteners to obscure the actual destination.

(See other techniques that Twitter trending topic spammers use, including fake retweets from prominent Twitterers.)

One spammer did a generic item that might have actually worked in context, except for the obviously irrelevant Web site URL.

* [redacted] Follow the blogpotomac http://…

And other folks were just people (presumably lonely ones) who didn’t even post URLs, who were probably just looking for followers. We’ve all seen enterprising users posting tweets incorporating all of the trending topics, creating a kind of a trending topic spam poem:

* [redacted] it was my 11thcommandment when watchinTGIF on DTV, apple Game7 get after Pedamundo, then follow on friday blogpotomac , no camels for paris

Placement as Endorsement
Outside of the pure attractiveness of the trending topics list to attention-seekers and spammers, there’s the whole idea of trending topic status as an endorsement. From what I’ve seen, as long as it’s a highly-trafficked page, it doesn’t matter if the placement comes from an auto-generated metric (e.g. most clicked, most commented) or an  editorially-selected item picked by a human — making the list is still seen as a prestige event. And from there, it’s a quick step to becoming an actual achievement in and of itself — “We’ve made it!” — worthy of your “by any means necessary” efforts.

This, of course, is not new: Look back to 1997, when the Time Person of the Century poll was flooded by Ataturk supporters, or authors buying a boatload of their own books to make the NYT bestseller list. Though online, the fact that you can help influence the outcome (albeit in a small, small way), simply by incessantly posting about, say, the Jonas Brothers, means that you have an accessible, low-effort way to become part of something bigger than yourself, which ties you to the larger community.

(The self-awareness that you’re actually just trying to game the system doesn’t really come into play. It’s just another example of the American Idol effect.)

Anyway, it’s up to us as communicators to figure out both how to weed out the spam, how to pry useful intelligence (if any can be found) out of the mess, and how to harness this kind of… compulsive behavior, whether it’s for fandom or anything else. And if you have any ideas on how to do that, please leave a comment (and get ready to collect your Nobel prize.)

I’m trying, really I am. Part of the problem is that any liberal arts major can look at a chart (or worse, make one) and draw completely specious, unwarranted, and often contradictory conclusions. Or rationalize around numbers we don’t like: “Have we accounted for seasonality?” “It’s not really an apples-to-apples comparison.” “True, pageviews are low, but we’re targeting influencers.”  “The numbers we can collect don’t capture the true impact.”

Actually, those last two sound a lot like last week’s “The ROI for Social Media Is Zero” by Augustine Fou [link via @MaddieGrant], which reads a lot to me like an apologia for social media metrics, though it’s more of an indictment of traditional media marketing metrics.

On the other side (well, on another side), is Geoff Livingston’s “Thoughts on Measurement,” which says that social media measurement isn’t that hard, if you start by looking at a strategy’s desired result, which informs the type of metric to use, which implies the tools needed.

It’s all very confusing. It’s handy to have a few metrics aphorisms to whip out when you get into trouble, including grumbling “lies, damn lies, and statistics,” “correlation is not causation,” and the whole, “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.”

Getting beyond the aphorisms, I’m going to list out a few Web resources that I’m tracking in an effort to bone up a little more on Web metrics and analytics. This is by no means a comprehensive list, so if you’ve got your own resources that you’ve found useful, leave a comment and I’ll add it to the list:

* KD Paine’s PR Measurement Blog – I was first introduced to KD at 2008 Blog Potomac conference. Her book, Measuring Public Relationships, had just come out, and though I didn’t get it then, I have it now and I’m catching up.

Her blogroll and sidebar are chock full of other resources to check out, and you could probably do worse than running down the list.

* Measuring Success, the Web site for the book by Brian Clifton — I came across this site after searching on a question about Google Analytics.

* Speaking of which — whatever tools you’re using, read the help resources, docs, and other learning guides (Google Analytics has Conversion University, for example) –basically, RFTM.

* Trending Upward — this blog is targeted towards analytics in higher education, but there’s good primer material on all sorts of Web metrics stuff.

* Social Science Statistics Blog — this one is way, way in the weeds and thus over my head [to mix my metaphors], but I’ve known since the 2007 International Conference on Weblogs and Social Media that I need to bone up on my knowledge of statistics. At the very least, I’m trying to get to the point where I can ask better questions after reading, say, the latest Pew Internet & American Life Project report.

Anyway, like I said, this is just a short list of resources I’ve added to my feedreader to try to get better at applying analytics. If you’ve got your own suggestions, please share in the comments.

URL shorteners first came about when people needed a way to send really long URLs in e-mail, IM and other places, without having the URLs break because of line wraps. (TinyURL was the first and best-known.) URL shorteners simply convert the really long URLs into really short URLs that redirect to the site you’re going to.

At first, URL shortening services were just a convenience. Dynamically-generated URLs (especially from mapping programs) can run into the hundreds of characters — some even exceeded the character limits for Web publishing systems I’ve used — which are annoying to work with. However, URL shorteners became necessities for microblogging, where you’re limited to as few as 140 characters. Most microblogging services will automatically run URLs over a certain length through an URL shortener, so you can save valuable characters to talk about your lunch or whatever.

Anyway, Cligs is a free service (requires registration) that does URL shortening and also adds in a click metrics component, so you can get numbers on how many people are clicking on your links and where they’re coming from (both geographically and in terms of referrers).

By way of example, I have a test Cligs URL (http://cli.gs/VMJJm1) that goes to a Washington Post article about a bit of pre-snow panic. I posted it to my Twitter account, and you can see where the clicks came from (I anonymized the links — also, you can see that “referrer” is consistently misspelled):

The no-referrer hits probably came from a Twitter desktop client of one sort or another; you can also see hits from various Web-based Twitter URL tools and Facebook (my Twitter updates also feed my Facebook updates).

You can also see that this link didn’t really set the world on fire.

There are additional stats (including graphs) and additional tools (edit, duplicate, and repost cligs), but you get the idea.

It seems to work okay — I haven’t run any campaigns on particular URLs. (About the only thing cli.gs is missing right now is a way to reset or recover a forgotten password. Don’t ask me how I know this.)

The point of all this, though, is for you to be able to get a better sense of the effectiveness of the links that you share to various services, which are outside of any click metrics that you’re running on your own site (Like the free Google Analytics, Sitemeter or Statcounter). Because sharing your expertise through socially-shared links is nice, but knowing what people respond to, so you can better allocate your time and attention, is nicer.

Cligs and its cohorts are additional tools for your metrics toolbox, to capture a specific segment of your content. It’s to link traffic what Feedburner does for RSS metrics.

One caveat that goes for any URL shortener or link redirection service — you’re relying on its continued existence for your links not to break. A consideration (even a small one) in these uncertain times — you’ll need to judge the value of the metrics versus any perceived risk. Also, I know I’m sometimes hesitant to click links when I can’t see the underlying URL (too many Rickrolls and password phishing attempts); that’s where services like LongURL come in, which expand shortened URLs so you can see where you’re going. Kind of perverse when you think about it, but useful.

If you’ve got experiences with Cli.gs, bit.ly, or other URL shortener and click metrics services, please leave a comment below.

• Building your Brand 101 Series
• Building Your Brand Series – Part 1 – Listening
• Building Your Brand Series – Part 2 – Responding
• Building Your Brand Series – Part 3 – Analytics

In the last post I talked about Google Analytics.
In this post I’m going to cover Feedburner. Feedburner is my favorite & I use it daily. It tells me a quick overview of where my traffic is coming from & also I can tell what pages they’re looking at. I use this tool daily & Google Analytics on a weekly to monthly basis depending on what I’m focused on.
Feedburner is installed just like Google Analytics but it’s much easier because they give you specific instructions. (I installed the html code myself on my blog!). You need to get a Feedburner account, then give it your rss feed & it will create some html code for you.
Feedburner aggregates all of my subscriptions (by RSS & email) & shows me a graph of the # of subscribers & how they’re reading my blog. It is a bit flaky & not consistent but I don’t worry about it.
This is a screenshot for my blog. I use Site Stat’s Incoming the most. This tells me where my daily traffic is coming from. If I see that someone has stumbled on one of my posts then I immediately add more links to other places in my blog because I know that post will get a rash of new readers & I want to help them explore my blog & encourage them to subscribe. (It’s a trick I learned from Darren Rowse, ProBlogger). And like Google Analytics I can see what people are searching for & what’s finding my blog. Those are words to focus on when I’m writing.

You should claim your blog in Technorati. That’s the best place to see your backlinks.

This is the third in a series on building brand. If you missed the first three then you may want to read them first.

• Building your Brand 101 Series
• Building Your Brand Series – Part 1 – Listening
• Building Your Brand Series – Part 2 – Responding

In the overview I described an example of a niche business of a professional photographer that wants to sell her photos online. She has created a site for posting proofs from portrait & event shoots. And she also has created a section where she displays her nature & landscape photography that’s for sale.
In the first two parts of the series I talked about using Google Alerts & other tools for monitoring mentions about your brand & then how to respond. That is social media monitoring.
Now we’re going to shift to the statistics that you can gather & how to use them to build brand.
The three free tools that I use are Google Analytics, Feedburner & Compete. There are many others.
We’ll cover Google Analytics in this post:

• Google Analytics is frequently used. It offers a variety of information. It’s easy to install & use. Follow these steps.
• You’ll need a Google mail account. Then sign up for Google Analytics & add your website. That will give you html code. You need to put that code at the bottom of each page.

You can also see:

• Top content (write more like that – people like it! write a post listing those links)
• Traffic Sources – Here you can find a list of the sources where the traffic that visited your site came from. If there are any surprises go check them out. Maybe you should be providing customer service or joining the conversation there? And if there are ones that you expect, go thank them.
• For the key words – this is what people are searching for & successfully finding your blog. You want to consider these words & use them in future writing. They are also ideas for SEO keywords.

Do you use Google Analytics? and if so what types of information do you find important & how do you use it?

The focus of the conference is: “Web 3.0 Conference is for the builders of the next generation web: designers, developers, entrepreneurs, marketers, business strategists, and venture capitalists, people who have experiences to share and a passion for learning the “hot new thing”, lessons from failures, innovations and inspirations, and the practical applications of all of the above. What are the ways we can create more value for our businesses? How can we provide a more meaningful experience for users and customers? How can we have a positive impact on the world we live in? What tools and applications are right for a given project? How do we gather and focus data points to deliver relevant information? How can we increase conversation and collaboration?”

Dr. Satyam Priyadarshy is the Chief Knowledge Officer and VP of Analytics at Network Solutions. Prior to this he co-founded and RKR Group, Inc. a strategy, business and technology consulting firm. Prior to RKR Group, Dr. Priyadarshy was a Senior Research Scientist at AOL. Dr. Priyadarshy has extensive experience in web data mining and consumer experience metrics. He has authored over 30 papers in various scientific areas and given invited talks on technology topics including social networking, semantic web etc. Dr. Priyadarshy also teaches Managing Information Systems in Global Environment course at the School of Management, George Mason University.

If you’re interested in attending the conference you can use customer code ‘SPKGF08′ to save $100 on a full-conference pass or sign up for a Free Special Events Pass giving you access to the exhibit area & admission to the Keynotes. The conference is Oct 16-17, 2008 at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Santa Clara, California.