Home What's Brewing? Marshall McLuhan Revisited: “The Metric is the Message”

Marshall McLuhan Revisited: “The Metric is the Message”

“The Metric is the Message.” Seattle’s Simply Measured, a leader in social analytics, exemplifies this concept: (As maxims and platitudes go, do remember you heard it here first on Seattle24x7).

Today’s marketers are developing messaging and “memes” according to criteria like “Sentiment Analysis, “What’s Trending?” and mostly, “What Works!” Words are not entirely selected by the “numbers,” but they can be crunched entirely that way, analytically speaking!

Simply Measured provisions such Social Media Analytics for both brands and their advertising agencies. For smaller sites and trial reporting, your money is simply no good here. You can tap into  a profusion of free, (no “FREE!”) tools that include: a Free Twitter Follower report, Free Facebook Fan Page Report, Free Facebook Competitive Analysis Report, Free Youtube, Klout, Google+ reports…and the list goes on.

The company was originally founded as the amorphous “Untitled Startup,” based on a commitment to a completely open, customer-driven approach to developing products.

“There are an infinite number of data points that big brands can now use to measure social media. Simply Measured brings together all the data and makes it accessible and easy for my clients to consume and take action on,” gushed Michael Brito, Vice President of Social Business Planning at Edelman.

Today’s Simply Measured metrics have been the “numbers” behind the CNBC presidential debates, CES on Mashable scores and the stats for the Super Bowl XLVI Brand Blitz.

Last week, Simply Measured launched its Instagram Analytics Tool for both the public and its enterprise customers.  Given that Instagram is a recent Facebook acquisition (for $1 billion dollars), and Facebook’s stock appears to be tanking, the “tale of the tape” seems germane.

Plus, in tandem with that release, the company released a study that covered a powerful segment of the branding metaverse, the “Interbrand 100 firms,” analyzing their usage of Instagram.

The Interbrand 100 is the A-List of the world’s one hundred most valuable brands. At the top of the heap: Coca-Cola, IBM, Microsoft, Google, GE, McDonalds, Intel, and Apple. 

What Simply Measured uncovered about this very visual, image sharing vehicle:

40% of the Interbrand 100 companies are active on Instagram. However, this pales compared to the essential lock that Twitter and Facebook have on brand engagement (better than 90%).

Big brands have big followings: 35% of the active 40% have 20,000 followers or more, while 8 of the total 100 brands, 20% of the active 40%, have over 100,000 followers.

MTV and Starbucks, numbers 55 and 96 on the brand leaderboard, both have nearly 1 million followers.

In terms of user engagement, Nike and Audi, according to Simply Measured, lead the pack.

Finally, 60% of photos uploaded by the active brands employed one of the trademark Instagram filters. Most popular options? The ‘Lo-fi’ and ‘X-Pro II.’

 Now that Instagram is presumed to be a household name, appearing on both Apple and Android devices, the “40% of top brand” figure can be construed as either a blessing or a curse.

 

“The Next Web” opined, “If Instagram isn’t used by 60% of the top 100 brands by the end of the year, [we’d] be surprised.”

 

Seattle’s Simply Measured will know the score.  [24×7]