Last week, we talked about the bright side of using metrics. Writers tend to go pale and look for the scotch when someone mentions analytics. Yet, if we don’t ever look to a standard of measure, then we can float around aimlessly, wasting valuable time on busy-work. We have better things to do than focus on meaningless statistics…like, um, write great books.

Metrics–Helpful Ally or One-Way Ticket to Crazy Town?

Yet, as amazing as social media might be, it presents a a sticky problem…there is no way to accurately measure social marketing. Last week, I mentioned Klout and Jami Gold brilliantly pointed out that it’s measurement rests on game theory. For those of you who have slept since your last economics class:

Game theory is a mathematical method for analyzing calculated circumstances (games) where a person’s success is based upon the choices of others.^[1Game theory has been used to study a wide variety of human and animal behaviors. It was initially developed in economics to understand a large collection of economic behaviors, including behaviors of firms, markets, and consumers. The use of game theory in the social sciences has expanded, and game theory has been applied to political, sociological, and psychological behaviors as well. (per Wikipedia).

Since animals and humans are complex, the decisions and results of those decisions are complex as well. Game theory is merely a mathematical model that helps glean a “good idea” of what had an effect where. Thus, if there is an uprising in Egypt, analysts have a way of making “good guesses” what will happen when and where and how. If the financial market in Greece is unstable, economists can discern what moves have a better chance of helping the Greeks recover, versus helping them head-first over a financial cliff.

But, at the end of the day, this is all game theory has to offer…a good idea. A guestimation. A die-hard…maybe.

Just a Maybe, Baby

Traditional publishing has many traditional habits. They looooove metrics because it does give a sense of power and control. We can look at a web site and see how many unique visitors we are getting and when they stop clicking and move on to go look at Internet porn instead of our latest cookbook. We can see where we get most of the site’s traffic.

Is that ad we paid for getting anyone to stop long enough to take a look? Better yet, how many are taking a look? And how many are BUYING? And, if sales jumped up in the last quarter, what did we do differently? Can we model this elsewhere?

Metrics can be very handy this way. Ahhhh, but social media (Klout included) is not as neat and clean as “how many clicks is the ad getting us?”  Thus, what can happen is we start treating social media the same as we would a metric that measures how many people clicked to BUY on our book widget.

The number of friends on Facebook and followers on Twitter are virtually meaningless numbers out of context, and Klout is a “good guess of influence” not a biblical truth.

A Slave to the Numbers

Thus, what can happen, even with Klout, is that we start paying more attention to the numbers than to the behaviors that really matter. Social media cannot be measured like a static web site. Thus, fretting over “how many friends” or “how many followers” we have is just a good way to get an eye twitch. When we hover over the numbers like a Jewish grandma, we risk losing sight of the real priority.

There are a lot of writers on social media who are working hard to build a brand and an author platform. This, to me, is WONDERFUL news. But there is a dark side.

Unless vigilant, writers can easily get too fixed on the social platform and forget what the platform is being built to support….finished books/our career as authors. We don’t have an author career to support if we don’t have lots of awesome finished books to SELL. Yesterday, Rachelle Gardner touched on this subject in her post. And, after some time to mull over her points. I do think we are saying a lot of the same things.

Many writers are worrying about creating a brand ahead of time. Yet, we can never fully be an author brand until we have good books to sell.

As a social media expert, I cannot make you an author brand. Don’t trust ANY social media expert who claims she can make you an author brand. Only YOU can make yourselves a brand.

What I am here to help writers do, is to lay the foundation and the support beams to eventually become an author brand. Using our NAMES instead of @BookDiva is like laying rebar to support the finished brand. Rebar is only a part of a building, much like our names, our social media activity and our blogs are only part of a finished brand. I am here to help you guys lay the correct foundation from the wisest, most cost-effective (time) materials. But I can only help with the foundation and framing. The finished product is all up to you as writers.

If we stop at rebar, concrete and support beams, we don’t have a building. We have an unfinished mess that is only useful for racoon habitats and a hangout for homeless people and underage drinking. Agents are like real estate agents and we are the contractors. We (writers) build the structures that agents sell (our books/us). Yet what are we asking them to put on the market?

Where I think agents are getting frustrated is that many writers, eager to be successful responsible professionals, are using social media. Yet, instead of focusing on the final product–fantastic books supported by a solid author platform–many writers are getting fixated on the rebar and concrete, and agents can’t sell that. They are in the business of selling finished structures.

When we become a slave to the numbers, we lose out BIG. Why? We lose sight of the big picture. Yes, having a successful blog will likely help with book sales. But staring at the blog numbers, and changing behavior every time there is a hiccup can get us scope-locked on the wrong thing. We start adjusting behavior to skew the numbers in our favor, and, to the extreme, we become no better than the monkey wearing out a lever to get a banana dropped from the ceiling.

Keeping Perspective

I still think Klout is very useful. Klout measures things that matter in social media. For instance, it measures if people are reposting our content, and, if so, how far is it traveling? Thus, the higher the Klout score, the more influence we are exerting. If we are having an influence on others, then it is safe to say we have a good chance of generating word-of-mouth for us and our books. Thus, if we are on Twitter and Facebook and our Klout score is 25, then we have a problem, and, yes, we need to modify our behavior.

Maybe we need to spend more time on Twitter. Checking in once a week isn’t enough. Perhaps we need to get better at sharing with others, talking to others and perhaps we need to look at WHAT we are posting/tweeting. If no one is finding enough value to pass on our message, we should take a look at what we are serving. Those are good modifications to behavior anyway. If our Klout score is in the toilet, then it shows us that we really are wasting time on social media. Thus, if we don’t change some things, it is best not to be on Twitter at all.

What is Enough?

Creating an author platform is a lot like losing weight and getting in shape. We need goals and we need to push ourselves. Yet, it is psychologically unhealthy to get on the scale every hour on the hour or take our measurements three times a day. It is also doing more harm than good if we are in the gym six hours a day. Balance is key.

As writers, our priority ALWAYS needs to be the book. But the platform is the foundation that will support our success. So my tips to make you successful and keep you sane:

Ignore the number of followers and friends.

I never look at mine unless I have to tell someone the current number. Be kind, supportive and authentic and trust people will respond favorably.

Ignore minor deviations.

I don’t pay attention if someone unfollows me. If they don’t want to hang out with me, their loss. As far as the blog, I check in throughout the day, mainly because I am approving comments and I happen to see them on the dashboard.

Only pay attention to monthly or quarterly numbers on the blog.

I only pay attention to the monthly numbers and, even then, I make no changes unless I see a decline lasting more than three months. There are other influences that can affect the hits. For instance, back in May when Osama bin Laden was apprehended and killed, my blog TANKED. People also apparently cared more about the MASSIVE earthquake in Japan than my witty repartee. Imagine that.

Numbers-wise? May was a HORRIBLE month. But if I was a slave to the numbers, I would have been running scared and changing my blog format and topics. Stuff happens. Keep an eye on the big picture.

We don’t need celebrity Klout (especially fiction authors).

Yes, Snookie got a book deal. I have no explanation for that other than the world is supposed to end in 2012 and perhaps that’s a sign.

If you are a non-fiction author, work to get that number up there, but again, just check in periodically. You just need a ballpark range, and, if you want to publish NF and your Klout score is the same as your mother who can’t work the Internet…then get to work.

Fiction authors? Just look to make sure you are engaging and influencing. If you are taking the time to be on social media, then just make sure it isn’t a total waste of time. If an agent expects you to have the same Klout as Justin Bieber, then maybe look for another agent. Her focus needs to be on the quality of your fiction, and, if she is a slave to the numbers, then that will likely trickle down and affect your career and creativity in a negative way.

Klout is a Best Guess, Not the Bible

Yes, people can manipulate the numbers. But people who use tricks to manipulate numbers that don’t reflect a reality only hurt themselves. Don’t worry about them, just focus on YOU.

At the end of the day, HAVE FUN!!!! Finish the book and write the best book ever written. Then use social media to create a support network of awesome people vested in your success. They hang out at #MyWANA if you haven’t been by.

So what are your fears? Concerns? Do you feel better?

I do want to hear from you guys!

And to prove it and show my love, for the month of October, everyone who leaves a comment I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. If you leave a comment, and link back to my blog, and mention my book We Are Not Alone in your blog…you get your name in the hat THREE times. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly.

I will pick a winner every week for a critique of your first five pages. At the end of October I will pick a winner for the grand prize. A free critique from me on the first 15 pages of your novel. Good luck!

I also hope you pick up copies of my best-selling books We Are Not Alone–The Writer’s Guide to Social Media and Are You There, Blog? It’s Me, Writer . Both books are ON SALE for $4.99!!!! And both are recommended by the hottest agents and biggest authors in th biz. My methods teach you how to make building your author platform FUN. Build a platform and still have time left.

This Week’s Mash-Up of Awesomeness

Some of you might not know, but on top of writing and teaching, I am also running for Vice President of the Unites States of America. I am part of the Piper/Lamb 2012 Ticket–Finally a Pair in the White House.

Follow the campaign at Piper Bayard’s blog. This week, our solution to Health Care. Granny Care–Putting “Care” Back in Health Care

25 Reasons You Won’t Finish That Story by the HILARIOUS Chuck Wendig

Six Prescriptions to Cure the Heartbreak of Being Published by Ruth Harris via Anne R. Allen

How to Get Guest Posts on Big Name Blogs and Land Dynamite Interviews   over at Writer Unboxed

Hands-Free Drink Holder–SHUT the Front Door! by Natalie Hartford

The Undie Chronicles–THUNDERWEAR by the hilarious Jenny Hansen

Why is Your Klout Score Important? by Lauren Dugan

Are Blog Tours Really Worth It? by Jody Hedlund

Healthy, Wealthy and Wise–Lessons from Steve Jobs by Diane Capri

Wagons, Ho! On the Trail with Jody Hedlund Help Bridgette Booth (an amazing woman, person and writer) for a good cause.

The post The Dark Side of Metrics–Writer Friend or Ticket to Crazy Town? appeared first on Kristen Lamb.

Okay, yesterday Literary Agent Rachelle Gardner had a blog post that promptly scared the bejeezus out of a lot of writers. I’m here to help you guys understand that Rachelle is actually on our side, and the idea of numbers should not scare you. Numbers can be a writer’s best friend. They can keep us accountable and can let us know where we are doing well and how we can improve. This is the purpose behind metrics in any business.

My husband works in the defense industry. His business uses metrics to look for waste, redundancy or errors. What changes are working? Which changes should be scrapped?

Writers can take a lesson from this.

One of the biggest challenges many writers face is the mental transition from artist-hobbyist to artist-entrepreneur. Many of us gravitated to writing because spreadsheets gave us hives and sales goals made our eyes roll back in our heads. I feel your pain. I came from a background of industrial sales. I wanted to throw myself in traffic every day I went to work. Writing was my lifeline, my salvation…but it wasn’t a free pass to get out of being a savvy businessperson.

So grab a paper bag. Breathe. That’s it. Place your head between your knees and your laptop at your feet so you can keep reading. I am here to help.

Not All Numbers Count Equally

Social media changes so quickly that even us “experts” have a full-time job simply keeping up with innovations. Yet, one innovation I have seen that makes me feel better is a site called Klout. Klout measures our ACTUAL influence. We now can gain a clearer picture of the impact we have (or don’t have) because there is context.

Yesterday, I guest-posted for Jane Friedman, contributing editor to Writer’s Digest Magazine (Jane has, by far, one of THE best blogs for writers out there, btw). My post addressed three social media blunders that can KILL an author platform. One of the blunders I listed was focusing too much on the numbers.

At first this seems like I am giving contradicting advice from Ms. Gardner. On the contrary!

There are lies, damn lies and statistics. ~Mark Twain

I see too many writers spinning their wheels joining ten different social sites and then just friending/following thousands of people. Having a Twitter following of 30,000 doesn’t necessarily mean much. To use my example from yesterday, I could theoretically hold up the White Pages I just tossed in my recycle bin and claim that I have 30,000 “friends.” Yet, how many of those “friends” can I count on to spread the message of my new book? How many of those “friends” can I count on for a sale? A recommendation? A referral? Help expanding my platform? Only a very small percentage–folks I know personally and a handful of weird, lonely people.

One of the cool things I have liked about Klout is that Klout measures our ACTUAL influence. It runs algorithms to see how many people our message is affecting. What is our amplification? Translated: How many people repost what we are posting? Are people listening? Are they responding? Are they sharing?

Real Friends DO Matter

See, I can go have 20,000 followers. I can even download an app to tweet witty comments every hour so I can “fool” people that I am really on Twitter. There are all kinds of machines that will blast out links to my blog. I never even have to physically BE on Twitter. On the surface, my huge following looks pretty awesome. Oh, and for a fee, I can purchase peeps to make that following even MORE impressive.

Ah, but the real numbers don’t lie.

Klout will tattle on us if we cheat. Most people don’t feel vested in bots. We are unlikely to repost for them and far more likely to just ignore and move on to people who don’t treat us like morons who can’t tell the difference between a person and a bot. Since others aren’t vested in us, our Klout score will reflect this.

When we focus on authentic relationships instead of super high “numbers” we actually will raise the number that counts—the Klout score. This is one of the reasons that writers are better off narrowing their focus and not “participating” on ten different sites. It spreads us too thinly, and, in the end it will negatively impact our Klout.

An Example

I blog, am on Facebook (no fan page yet) and I tweet. That’s it. I have less than 5,000 twitter followers and less than 2,000 Facebook peeps….but, I regularly have a Klout score of 72, which is pretty darn great. Due to a death in the family, I haven’t been on social media as much and my Klout score is a tad lower, but it generally is pretty strong at 71-73. I have a very high rate of amplification. This means people listen, they like and they share. This proves what I have been saying all along.

No one is successful on social media alone.

What I love about Klout is that Klout is not so much about me as it is about others. The better I serve others, the higher the score. See, if get on G+ and friend a half a zillion people, that serves ME. That is no measure of how I have served others. A “large number” alone can’t tell me if those in my following listen, whether they care, or are if they are even engaged. Klout is a far better measure of our social media impact, and we don’t need the mega-high followings to have a Klout score that will gain an agent’s attention.

Blog Statistics

Last week there were all kinds of blogs about whether it was a waste of time for writers to have a blog. One agent said that they would not be impressed unless a writer could show 15,000 unique visits a month. Many writers nearly passed out with a panic attack. FIFTEEN THOUSAND A MONTH!!!!

What I find interesting is that so many of the agents feel blogging is a waste of time. How about BAD blogging is a waste of time?

Why do we all assume that because writers can write novels, we automatically have the skills to blog in ways that will connect to tens of thousands of followers? Blogging is a skill, like anything else. Instead of blaming the blog, let’s see this as a separate skill that needs to be learned. It is also a skill, that, with lots of practice, can be MASTERED.

I will grant there is a lot of GREAT writing out there, but the blogs are not geared to gain those large amounts of visits or even connect with readers (who aren’t writers). Why? Writers are blogging about the wrong things and targeting the wrong people (exclusively).

Expand the Blog and Improve the Klout Score

I can be a world-renowned expert on the mating rituals of the African Tse Tse fly and it not be worth publishing a book. Not enough people care about the Tse Tse fly getting lucky for me to sell a lot of copies.

Granted, the subject of writing is not as limited as the Tse Tse fly. A lot of people care about writing and the craft of writing, but when viewed as a slice of the larger whole global population? Um…there are better things to blog about.

Storytellers have been making the mundane magical for over 100,000 years. We have the power to create new worlds, breathe life into imaginary people. Yet, we get a blog and we all blog about….writing. We become the All-Writing-All-the-Time-Channel. This will limit our influence and lower the Klout score.

Why?

Because only a small percentage of the overall literate population in need of entertaining or informing cares to read about narrative structure, POV, character arc, or trends in indie publishing. Also, too many writers are all blogging on the same thing targeting the same worn-out demographic. There are only so many writing blogs we writers can follow and be loyal to. Yet, when I mention getting out of the comfort zone, writers promptly want to defend the writing blog. Feel free to blog about writing, but likely your blog numbers will never get high enough to matter in a proposal.

Before anyone gets huffy, I made all the mistakes so you don’t have to. We will look at me.  I blogged about writing once a week, religiously for over a YEAR, and, after a year I had less than 600 views a month. After a year of banging my head against a wall, I set out to figure out what made blogs popular and how we could tool our blogs to connect with writers AND non-writers.

Since I am all about authenticity, here is a look at my stats from May of 2009 into December of 2010. That top number is 25,000 for those who can’t see.

Count over roughly 11 pathetic columns. The wimpy little column in May 2010 was after a YEAR of blogging about writing. 594 visits a MONTH. The next jump was when I started blogging twice a week, once about social media. A little better, but not that wonderful. Had another little bump. Nice, but room for improvement. That fourth jump? That HUGE leap? THAT was when I started blogging in ways that connect to readers beyond writers. I would tell you more, but I save that secret information for my workshops.

One would think my information blogs would have made the huge difference, but actually they didn’t. I had to get out of the comfort zone. When I say don’t do a writing blog, it isn’t because I sit up all night thinking of ways to make you guys miserable (I only stay up until ten doing that). I tell you these things because I have had all the same “bright ideas” that turned into digital tar babies. So when I give advice, it really is because I want to help you guys. Writers are wonderful, but our support base can only do so much.

Remember earlier I said metrics were helpful for figuring out inefficiencies? Well, contributing thousands of words a week to a blog that was reaching less than 600 people a month I think qualifies as an inefficiency. I had to rework my strategy.

Tip: If the horse is dead, DISMOUNT!

As you can see from that image, numbers helped me see when I started connecting and what content made the difference. If I hadn’t had the analytics, I would never have been able to get an idea of what worked and what was a waste of time. Numbers help us improve. They help us adjust and make a new plan if the old one isn’t working. Numbers help agents land us sweeter deals.

This applies to speaking engagements, Internet radio followings and vlog views (also mentioned in Rachelle’s blog). Maybe your numbers aren’t huge, but if you can show a 1000% growth in six months, agents can use this in your favor. Quantifiable metrics can help you grow, expand and innovate. Numbers keep us accountable and focused. Numbers help us try new things and see tangibly if they are working. Numbers help us work smarter, not harder.

What to take away:

• Authentic relationships DO matter.
• Klout score is more important than surface numbers.
• Large blog followings are possible with consistency and a solid plan. Content matters.
• Some topics, by their very nature, will experience limited growth.
• Focusing on community and being part of a team will translate into a higher Klout. This is one of the reasons I HIGHLY encourage participating on #MyWANA.
• ABOVE ALL…People matter the most. If we serve people with authentic interaction and great content, the numbers will eventually reflect all our hard work.

Okay, so do you guys feel better? Need a digital daquiri? Any heart attacks out there? Hey, we are not alone! Better, we are in this TOGETHER!

I do want to hear from you guys!

And to prove it and show my love, for the month of October, everyone who leaves a comment I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. If you leave a comment, and link back to my blog, and mention my book We Are Not Alone in your blog…you get your name in the hat THREE times. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly.

I will pick a winner every week for a critique of your first five pages. At the end of October I will pick a winner for the grand prize. A free critique from me on the first 15 pages of your novel. Good luck!

I also hope you pick up copies of my best-selling books We Are Not Alone–The Writer’s Guide to Social Media and Are You There, Blog? It’s Me, Writer . Both books are ON SALE for $4.99!!!! And both are recommended by the hottest agents and biggest authors in th biz. My methods teach you how to make building your author platform FUN. Build a platform and still have time left over to write more great books! I am here to change your approach, not your personality.

The post Numbers Are Our Friend–Writers and the Wild World of Metrics appeared first on Kristen Lamb.