On-topic message volume and its comparative derivative, share of voice, always show up in metrics and graphs of social media activity. When the media being measured were print and broadcast, the units were reasonably consistent—articles and mentions aren't too hard to figure out in newspapers and broadcast news. Social media complicates the units with new forms that are less comparable. So what do volume and share mean in this environment?
I started thinking about this as I read Bill Ives's review of Techrigy SM2. He pointed out a chart that breaks down mentions by channel:
You can also sort the mentions by their channel to see where the conversations are occurring. The screen shot below shows an example where Twitter leads the pack for this brand with 190 mentions. Following are a number of blog tools (LiveJournal, Word Press, Blogger, Typepad that in aggregate total more than Twitter. Next in order are: Ning, Wikipedia, Flickr, MySpace, YouTube, and Facebook.I don't want to pick on Techrigy, but this made me think a little about how items are counted in general.
Measuring corn
Think about how you might measure corn. On a small scale, you could count ears or kernels. On a large scale, you could use weight (tons) or volume (bushels). If you're going to compare it to wheat, you need to use the same units. If you're going to compare it to beef, you need to back up and understand the question clearly before proceeding.
Used carelessly, a comparison of raw message counts across platforms might be more distracting than useful. A conversation in the form of back-and-forth one-liners on Twitter might show up as many items, while a longer conversation in the comments of a blog post might show up as one item. Even if you count comments individually, one long comment might contain more content—more statements of fact or opinion—than half a dozen tweets.
Direction, not evaluation
Again, not to pick on Techrigy—message volume is a standard metric—but the profusion of new forms is changing the meaning of some of our metrics. Volume, in particular, needs to be considered in the context of how specific online media work. Frequency distribution by media type can be helpful in suggesting areas for further exploration, but when comparing raw volumes across fundamentally different forms, the actual numbers probably don't matter.
