Net Prophet 2011 – Incredible Online Mileage

Please note this is a re-post from an article I wrote on 15/05/2011 on http://www.brandseye.com but the website has since changed format and my posts are no longer accessible there.

In just over three months of monitoring the online conversation about this year’s Net Prophet conference, BrandsEye picked up 5 963 unique mentions. This included the conversation in the build up to the event, on the conference day itself and all of the content published after the event as well.

In this time, approximately 6 962 825 people would have had the opportunity-to-see or be reached by this year’s Net Prophet message – such extensive coverage would similarly have generated an advert value equivalent (AVE) of R 1 612 160.

These volumes were obtained with minimal relative pushing of the Net Prophet brand story with only 2% and 1% being driven by enterprise and press-based sources respectively.  Aside from content from Net Prophet-associated social media presences, the top contributors of non-consumer conversation included Memeburn and Afrinnovator.

Twitter served as a vocalising platform for 81% of the total conversation, which is appropriate given its consumer-friendly nature and considering more than 97% of the Net Prophet conversation was driven by consumers. 

On the Day of the Event

We saw 3 529 tweets using the Net Prophet hashtag coming from 851 unique authors on Twitter. To put this conversation in context this is roughly what a national event like this year’s State of the Nation Address (exclusive of the drinking game conversation) received in one day.

However, tentatively, due to the high online credibility of some of the attendees approximately 3 984 785 people had the opportunity-to-see or be reached by the Net Prophet message on Twitter on that day alone.

Twitter accounted for the vast majority of mentions on the event day (99%), with some content also coming from blogs like shesthegeek.co.za and donpackett.posterous.com.  As such, the earned advert value equates for the reach of the Twitter conversation solely on the 12th of May equates to  R 923 044.

The Net Prophets

The speaker who generated the most conversation was Richard Mulholland, who accounted for 298 mentions alone, of which 265 thereof engaged with his Twitter presence.  However, the audience engaged the most with Diana Blake’s content – with the Joule concept vehicle receiving 208 direct mentions.

Gustav Praekelt and Jason Xenopoulos received 137 and 113 mentions respectively, also a large share thereof coming from interactions on Twitter. Permjot Valia and Rapelang Rabana also generated considerable volumes of conversation, with 93 and 90 mentions respectively. Conversation for these speakers, also focused more on their content rather than their individual public presences.

On the whole it was a incredible fusion of the best ideators, thinkers and digital pioneers of our online community. We look forward to next year’s event with great anticipation to see how much the online space has developed in the space of a year, which is where the legacy of this year’s event will truly illustrate how positively the event was received.

TEDxCape Town marked the Spot

Please note this is a re-post from an article I wrote on 28/04/2011 on http://www.brandseye.com but the website has since changed format and my posts are no longer accessible there.

In the Tedian spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDxCapeTown brought together a group of likeminded individuals to an all-day event last Saturday, the 16th of April 2011. The BrandsEye team also showed its support – with Tim Shier and myself monitoring the social media conversation about the event live from inside the venue.

As such, taking inspiration from Bruce Lee’s “Be water my friend,” quote, this year’s conference showcased the ingenuity of self-styled “water mavericks” from our local community – notable thought leaders within the field of water management – ranging from anything in its wholesale provision to its conservation and contribution to scientific progress.

For the last two months, BrandsEye searched for online conversation about TEDxCapeTown across anything from social media networks and blogs to online news sites, forums and company websites.

Points of focus related to the theme, the speakers, the organisers and the sponsors of the event, not to mention the engagement with the TEDxCapeTown brand by the attendees themselves!

In just over seven weeks, TEDxCapeTown was mentioned 1 727 times by consumers, companies and members of the press.

During this time, over 2 192 145 people had the opportunity-to-see and share in the TEDxCapeTown story! And reaching such credible numbers, implies a very valuable conversation!  The value of which can be measured by its earned media value (the cost of this conversation had it been sponsored) approximately R 508 232!

On the day, the event received an incredible 541 mentions mostly from interaction with the twitter handle @TEDxCapeTown and the event’s hashtags #TEDxCT and #TEDxCapeTown. Also on the day, there were 174 retweets associated with the TEDxCapeTown brand and of which over 264 tweets engaged directly with the speakers’ content.

Furthermore, people weren’t just blithely listening. A lot of this event’s conversation moved online as citizen journalism trended within the audience – 141 of whom tweeted throughout the day at an average of more than 3.5 tweets per person!

Conversation about TEDxCapeTown was overwhelmingly favourable, with 25.6% being exceptionally positive and fully endorsing the event.  The large majority of this conversation (74.15%) from neutral coverage, while the only negative mentions (0.25%) coming from attendees pointing out a few organisational bottlenecks.

This conversation took place mostly on Twitter, with the TEDxCT hashtag even trended in the Twittersphere on the day of the event!

10% of this conversation was driven by TEDxCapeTown owned domains, which was very successful in inspiring vast amounts of consumer engagement online. 89% consumer-driven conversation is a lot more than most big brands in SA would see and points to a well-managed brand overall.

Broadening our minds with such ideas is undeniably vital to humanity’s collective progress and development. However, while offline conversations are critical in this creative process, by moving these conversations online, this message can reach a much larger audience than just those in the room and ultimately having a much more lasting impact.

As such, considering how much learning the online community at large could extract from the watershed ideas shared online as a result of TEDxCapeTown, the value of its online footprint for our collective application cannot be over-emphasised.

We look forward excitedly to what TEDxStellenbosch and TEDxSoweto hold in store for us this year!

2011 South African Budget Speech Online

Please note this is a re-post from an article I wrote on 24/02/2011 on http://www.brandseye.com but the website has since changed format and my posts are no longer accessible there.

– Did you budget for this much conversation?

Since yesterday, BrandsEye has been tracking the online conversation surrounding Pravin Gordhan’s 2011 South African Budget Speech to present you with a balanced appraisal of volumes and trending topics thereof.

97% of this conversation came from consumers – showing significant engagement by ordinary people in their own personal capacity. Considering that there was no celebrity-inspired stunt driving online conversation as was the case with Pres. Jacob Zuma’s 2011 State of the Nation Address, this is a considerable amount of unadulterated online conversation for a single event measured over two days.  2% thereof came from press-related sources, while the remaining 1% was pushed by enterprises such as Deloitte.

67% of this conversation was exchanged on Twitter, which included 109 retweets. Facebook served as a platform for 15% of the conversation, with miscellaneous websites and blogs such as mybroadband.co.za, techcentral.co.za and marcforrest.com driving the remainder.

“Tax” was the most trending theme with 16.8% of budget-specific conversation – relating to the various taxation adjustments for the following budget year.  The 80c increase in sin taxes per carton of cigarettes specifically, was of particular concern, holding 6.5% of the conversation. Other notable influences of this theme would have included the R 8.1 billion worth of tax relief granted for the following financial year.

Exchanges about the fuel levy increase and taxes on gambling winnings over R 25 000 were also influentialholding 9.3% and 7.3% of the conversation respectively.  A further 8.3% of the conversation talked about the R 800 billion set aside for infrastructural improvements without cutting the budget deficit.

The Independent Online and @BusinessLiveSA was the most engaging/engaged with online presence, accounting for 2.6% and 2.3% of the total conversation.   Other prominent entities who were either drivers of/engaged by conversation were @stephengrootes, @khayadlanga, @Mgigaba and @DeloitteSA.

6.7% of this conversation came from a respected source, which has a reach 1000 or more people.  In total, thisconversation reached approximately 2 690 970 people, thus generating an earned media value of R 609 180.75.