I wanted to place that number in context with our other digital marketing efforts to get a sense of how Facebook compares to other channels. I settled on page views as the closest relative to Facebook impressions and began comparing them to pageviews on the SMU website. It became clear that our Facebook page should rank in the top 10 of most important web pages at SMU.

About the same time our student worker completed a survey of peer institutions and what they were doing on Facebook. One clear discovery was that schools who posted content more often had more fans. So we started posting content more often to Facebook.

We average about 12,000 impressions for each piece of content that we post. So, there was a quick rise in our monthly impressions. In October we received 350,000 impressions from our Facebook content. Our Facebook page had eclipsed every  page on our website except one, the SMU homepage.

Then in January, which is typically a slower month for our website it happened the SMU Facebook page logged nearly 500,000 impressions beating the number of homepage pageviews by 4%. Now, we were left to ask, what is the value of an impression versus a pageview and what does this change about the way we market the University?

Quick Conclusions

• Facebook as one of our most important communication vehicles and take that into account in the future.
• Facebook impressions are not as intentional as pageviews so they should be valued less. More research would be need to be conducted to determine a ratio.
• The Facebook page’s value as a channel is increasing faster than our website’s

One of the strengths of this system is that it ties a comment to a person. For large blogs, it prevents anonymous users from posting spam or other non constructive content. In addition, by linking blog comments to your Facebook profile, it offers the possibility of bringing new visitors to a site through a user’s friend network.

Several downsides include not being in control the content of comments, because they are stored by Facebook, and requiring users to be on Facebook (or Yahoo) in order to comment.

It will be interesting to see if Facebook comments become the default standard for comments on the web or just a side venture that never pans out. With plug-ins, like the one I’m using, to integrate Facebook comments into WordPress – I would be hard pressed to bet against at least moderate success.

Type what you want to track.

One of my favorite tools to track mentions of a company, product or person is Google Alerts. This is a simple tool that can give you an edge in understanding what people are saying about you or your organization.

How it works

Choose a search term and use advanced search options to tailor your results. Google will scan the internet for you at the time interval you decide and then email what it finds to you.

You can also decide what type of content you want to hear about. I like the comprehensive option, but it can also selectively search: news sites, blogs, the general web, video and groups.

Once you’ve created your alert you’ll be able to login using a Google Account to edit your alerts. You can also receive the results as an RSS feed to insert into your favorite feed reader by clicking the search term while managing your alerts. Just look for the RSS icon either in the address bar of your browser or on the left hand side of the page.

What have you used Google Alerts to track? Leave a comment and let us know.

Posterous Logo

Posterous is a service that should appeal to people who want to post things online but don’t want to deal with the technical details. It works by simply emailing what you want to post to post@posterous.com. You don’t even need to create an account to get started, just email them. The contents of your email whether text, pictures,  or a video are automatically uploaded to a page that is created for you. After your first email, you have the option to visit the site and customizing address and settings for your content. If your looking for an incredibly simple way to post content or blog on the web try Posterous.

My Posterous page: jamesvandyke.posterous.com

The Posterous Website

Linux Penguin

I want to love Linux but it doesn’t share my feelings. To be honest, I think it’s hurt that I’m only looking for a fling; a trophy of geekdom to casually flaunt at parties. “Yeah, I”ve got a Linux box at home.” We both know that when I’m done experimenting I’ll head back to the Mac.

I think that’s the problem with Linux, even all dressed up in Ubuntu’s latest, it wants a serious commitment. Linux is a idealist and I’m looking for practicality. The little penguin even lectures me when I try to have a little fun with Flash.

“You know that’s not open source. We can do it if you want but I’m not going to enjoy it.”

“Lighten up a little. I’m just looking for some fun,” I reply.

We’re ships passing in the night, exchanging glances, thinking what could be but ultimately knowing nothing will come of it. I can tell this spunky OS has features and the ideals it pushes are mesmerizing. Sadly, those ideals aren’t as easy to live with as they are to listen to. Sure, I want information to be free but the cool stuff, it’s not free, and Linux can’t compete.

So every once in a while I’ll keep looking back over my shoulder at the little preachy penguin, wishing that it could live up to it’s own dreams; but sadly, I’ll walk away with Mac because I can live with Mac.

Visit What the Font.

Try the Pogue-O-Matic.

I wouldn’t expect long posts from the new application, those are still best left to keyboards and monitors. Like other applications you can download it from the iTunes store.

Update: One downside that I discovered is that you can’t edit a draft that is saved on the server. The app only supports drafts saved locally to your iPhone.

One of the biggest questions that I had was if the on-screen keyboard would be easy to use. So far the answer is yes. The software correction is what makes it especially useful. I can just type and the software automatically fixes most of the mistakes I make.

I took the train into work today and had another wow moment. I was able to clear out my email inbox while traveling to work.

The last feature I really like is the GPS and Google Maps combo. We drove to a baseball game on Sunday and used the iPhone to guide us. It worked well. one downside

One of the downsides to the iPhone is it’s battery. On Monday I charged it overnight and turned it on the next morning. Unfortunatly it only lasted until about 5pm. This isn’t ideal but as long as I remember to bring the charger with me to work it shouldn’t be a big deal.

So there it is. Apparently the iPhone is as great as everyone says it is.

If you try to divide by zero Excel throws a fit telling you to “#DIV/0!”

If you need the possibility of a zero in the divisor of one of your formulas without your worksheet spewing obscenities use the IF command with the following template:

=IF(test, if true result, else)

An Example:

=IF(A2=0,0,A1/A2)

This would result in the number 0 placed in the cell, effectively censoring Excel from telling you that you can’t divide by 0.

This also works with Google Docs.

What were you doing?
I was trying to setup a spreadsheet to evaluate entrepreneurial ventures but sometimes the values for certain sections needed to be zero. An example, we needed to account for both retail and manufacturing firms. However since retail firms don’t have manufacturing costs the spreadsheet has to realize you might be trying to compute manufacturing numbers where the divisor is 0.

Thanks to LifeHacker for the tip.