HotHouse makes brands work for people online

By Simon van Wyk

Music is a powerful tool. It can affect people emotionally and physically. Hearing a few bars from a familiar tune can immediately take you back to a time long past, when you first heard that song or when something significant happened while the song was playing.

It’s no surprise that sharing music has emerged as one of the most popular ways people have used the personal realm of social media.

As most people know, music was one of the first media to be transformed by the Internet – think Napster and Kazaa. But just as illegal file sharing led to iTunes, music has moved from a grassroots phenomenon online to one that is becoming entwined with big brands.

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The traffic numbers you see for social media sites can be staggering. But what do those numbers really mean? Besides getting into the conversion rates,  it’s crucial to ensure that your data is accurate and that you understand it in the way it was intended to be interpreted. CNET has recently reported on an apparent reporting gaffe involving YouTube and Warner Music Group. The surge in numbers reported by ComScore certainly suggest that the numbers are not as they appear.

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Determining the success of word of mouth marketing activities, like measuring social media campaign success, is best done on a case-by-case basis. Importantly, it needs to integrated with the measurement of other marketing activities, particularly since so much word of mouth activity happens offline.

Having said that, there are a few general guidelines to follow when attempting to measure word of mouth. Larry Freed from US website satisfaction agency Foresee Results has identified what he calls the six truths of word of mouth measurement:

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