by Ian Orekondy on February 21, 2011
I’ve been using Amazon’s Mechanical Turk to get vast quantities of work done quickly and cheaply over the past several months. The tool has evolved from it’s earlier days, and many people I’ve spoken with have outdated ideas about what the tool can help you achieve. It’s not the easiest tool in the world to use (like Fiverr.com), but if you know how to start out the right way, your chances of success are greatly improved. Here are my tips on how to use mTurk for the first time to easily get quality results.
Set Reasonable Expectations for Yourself on the First Pass
Expect that your first mTurk HIT request probably won’t be completed perfectly the first time. You really have to test your ability to write clear, concise directions; see what you get back and then refine. Don’t spend too much $ on the first test, because you may have to do it a couple times.
Avoid combining too many tasks in a single HIT request.
For example, if your job requires someone to go to Google, search for a keyword, and then enter data into a spreadsheet AND then cross-reference that data against another resource, that combination of multiple tasks might be enough to slow down the mTurk worker (aka “turk”), confuse them, or just generally lead to lower quality.
Specifically, here’s what you should do:
- BREAK OUT jobs into specific tasks and SEPARATE the tasks as unique HITs.
- CREATE numbered bullets for each micro-task within each HIT.
- USE all-caps on the action words.
- PROVIDE examples of each step successfully executed.
This is the basic approach I’ve used for hundreds of successful mTurk HITs, and the benefits are:
- More accurate / better quality work
- Faster results
- Happier Turks that are eager to work with you again (and at lower rates)
Eric W. Kratzer, founder and CEO of Open Run Studios, an internet agency specializing in Online Marketing, Branding, Strategy and Production for the Performing Arts, approached me to help his team accelerate their new business prospecting process and reduce their marketing research costs. After implementing my suggestions regarding their initial mTurk HIT, Eric said:
Ian…I took your advice and broke our original [HIT] into two steps. I ran the first HIT last night and it was ready for me by this morning. It looks like it came out perfectly on the first go! The average wage was $1.21/hour on our first project and $.52/hour on our second.. Thank you so much for inspiring us with your own mTurk experience and advice!
What Tips Would You Suggest on How to Set-Up Effective mTurk HITs?
Tagged as:
amazon mechanical turk,
fiverr,
mechanical turk,
mturk
by Ian Orekondy on November 8, 2010
Last week, a few days before the 2010 midterm elections, I was contacted by Columbia University Television regarding a story they were filming on the topic of how social media is transforming political campaigns.
The producers for the story reached out to me via Facebook after viewing my presentation “Andrew Cuomo vs. Carl Paladino: A Search and Social Media Analysis” on Slideshare.
Unfortunately, I was travelling out of town on business last week and was unable to meet them in New York to film the interview. So they interviewed Michael Bassik, Senior Vice President of Global Strategies Group instead.
Here is the final video story:
Here’s my presentation that led to the news team contacting me:
And here is Global Strategies Group’s Case Study:
Tagged as:
Facebook,
Integrating Search and Social Media With Offline Campaigns,
Political social media strategy,
SlideShare
by Ian Orekondy on October 7, 2010
Earlier this week, Twitter announced the launch of Twitter Promoted Accounts, which is a new advertising feature being rolled out to a handful of companies this week. In the announcement, Twitter used Xbox as an example.
Well, here’s our first example of another Twitter Promoted Account from @ExpressLisaG
One of the first Twitter Promoted Account Examples - Retail Apparel - Express
So what’s the impact of Express using Twitter Promoted Accounts? Well, the first way to measure the success is in the number of followers (yes, it’s a measure of success):
Express Twitter Followers Spike After Launch of Promoted Accounts
Her average number of daily new followers has increased 7x as we can see here:
7x increase in average daily new twitter followers, since launching Promoted Accounts
But I think @ExpressLisaG ‘s Promoted Twitter Account is more interesting than simply the increasing follower count. I think it demonstrates a few Twitter best practices that most stbrands and many people still struggle to follow:
- Transparency – she clearly states in her Twitter profile that she works for Express (she’s the CMO)
- Personality - her twitter name, profile and tweets all work together to give us a glimpse into her personality
- Authentic Engagement- Lisa is interacting with her followers in lots of great ways. She’s not only answering customer questions, thanking people for mentioning Express and her social media efforts, but she’s even reading her followers’ blogs and then connecting back with them on Twitter! That is something I almost never see brands do on Twitter. Lisa – what’s your preferred social media listening tool? Got any great tips!?
- Mix of Promotions – Lisa is mixing in promotional tweets to contests, sales, new products, which I think makes for a great balance overall. People want promotions with personality!
- Advanced Tracking – not only is she using bit.ly to track clicks (which reveals at least one initial anecdotal insight – see below); she appears to be integrating Express’s Omniture Site Catalyst Web Analytics package into her tweets as well as we can see in the &CID parameter in the long URL below:
Example Long URL of shortened URL within tweet: http://www.express.com/london-sweater-27904-20.pro?Mft=london+sweater&Mpper=3&Mpos=1&Mpg=SEARCH%2BNAV&Mrsaa=*&Mrsavf=SIZE_NAME&Mrsavf=category&Mrsavf=Color&CID=937
Example Shortened bit.ly URL: bit.ly/b8d5eO
Bit.ly Tracking Reveals a Recent Express Tweet Received almost 200 clicks
That’s a lot of clicks! Now, granted she’s got over 22,000 followers, but 181 clicks being driven to a highly-relevant landing page is pretty fantastic.
A similar recent tweet for Men’s Peacoats received only 22 clicks, so I wonder if Express could use this type of data to inform SEO landing page testing going forward?
Anyway, I found @ExpressLisaG ‘s twitter account via Twitter’s Promoted Accounts, and I have to say, I’m pleased. Impressed actually! Nice job to Express and Lisa’s team overall!
If you found this post relevant, valuable, or simply interesting, please bookmark this page, subscribe or simply retweet. Thanks!
Tagged as:
Promoted Accounts,
social analytics,
Twitter
