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Social media, lies and statistics

2012 January 8

Every now and then I am reminded of the social media chasm: those completely into it, opposed to those that will tell you to get real. What is the benefit? I can only guess the introduction of email was less hefty, since I do not recall any business case discussion about that at all (maybe because I got introduced to it the first day on the first job; note: we are talking 1987 here…).

Moving to a new domain name recently did make me look at some of the statistics around the social.me:

  • Number of views on my blog: 19,645 (in 2012)
  • Most favorite posts: MapMyconnections (2240)
  • Most comments: The end of Open Source in the Netherlands (42)
  • Number of views of my presentations on Slideshare: some 16,000
  • Most favorite presentation: What journalists need to know about making maps (2129)
  • Number of views on Issuu: 4822
  • Most views are on the English summery of my thesis on open innovation!
  • Number of pages I have read in 2011: 7387 (says Anobii, this cannot be right)
  • When I egosearch my name, I get 227,000 results in the Netherlands (my name is not unique…)
  • … etc etc (ignoring LinkedIn, Twitter, Foursquare, etc for now)

If I would have named this post “On Sex, lies and statistics” the number of hits would increase tremendously. Or I could have rephrased a popular expression (e.g. Crossing the social media chasm), piggyback on its fame and glory, and get more hits that way. What is the value of all of this?

My ‘evidence’ (if needed) is still very anecdotal. I recently presented to some 50 people on open innovation. That presentation is now nearing the 1000 mark on Slideshare. The return from a real-life presentation is 3-4 reactions; about the same I get from posting my presentation on Slideshare. With hardly any extra (time) investment, I double my ‘return’.

My goal is unchanged: one (real) conversation a week. Share what I know, or think I know, without any extra effort at all. Respond here and there to others that do the same. Hoping for good feedback on my thoughts and scriblings. Doing fine so far.

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