A lot of excitement and optimism surround the potential of social media for marketers-after all, that is where attractive audience segments are starting to amass-but just like any marketing medium, measurement is a critical component for success.
But how do you turn data into dollars when you don’t have the right metrics to tell you why you’re getting your current results? How do you prevent future failure?
The key is actionable metrics: data that help you understand the ‘why’ behind a result, while supporting your efforts to reach higher performance targets. Such metrics are the little heroes of the data world, because they deliver actionable insights to help you make smart decisions that positively affect your bottom line.
Social media measurement is quite immature, just as Web analytics was back in the mid-1990s. It will evolve quickly as marketers attempt different approaches and hold enterprise measurement firms accountable to help make sense of all the activity data generated by social media interactions. In turn, social media can seem very challenging, and at times even impossible, to measure with regard to its effects. At its core, digital measurement is contingent on controlling the customer experience and laying tracking hooks along the way to understand response and subsequent behavior. However, social media's foundation challenges this very tenet: The consumer is now in control after all!
Three Useful Points to Consider in Social Media Marketing and Measurement
1) Clarity is key: define your success
As with all media, before diving in, ask yourself: what will it take for you to look back at the campaign and say that it was successful? Perhaps it will be based on the number of coupons downloaded, the number of 18-24 year olds who become fans on Facebook, CRM signups or overall brand effectiveness measures and attitudinal shifts… Only you know what is important, but whatever it is, be clear about it so you can prepare to measure it, and adjust your campaign on the fly if need be.
2) Keep measurement simple and familiar
To break this down, separate quantity questions from quality questions. On the quantity side, keep it simple: know how many people you want to reach, and then measure how many you actually reached post-campaign. Make these metrics as familiar as possible – if they are expressed in comparable terms to other parts of your campaign, they are more likely to be tangible and accepted. Reach and frequency metrics are not going away any time soon.
The quality question allows for a bit more creativity – here is where you can bring in ‘engagement’ and otherwise tie in your KPI’s from (1) back into your web program. Basically, you are building a track record with your brand and making the case that there were quality elements which underscored that social media marketing was a good choice. Depending on what your success markers were, these metrics will vary – but can range from ‘branding” metrics (e.g. as measured through comScore’s Brand Metrix studies) all the way to the lift in offline purchasing.
3) Control is not the point, listening is
We know, we know… this is a scary premise. But even the best clarity, choreography and execution cannot completely guarantee control in a social media campaign. So let’s imagine for a moment that we can suspend our disbelief about relinquishing control and needing to communicate, and focus instead on how to be heard -- because attention, after all, is a scarce commodity. How might this be valuable, and what is the added value of being able to listen directly, and adjust when needed?
The value proposition here is also the trade-off – this is two-way, and frequently one-to-many. Listen to the good. Respond quickly to the bad, and respond even faster to the ugly. Enable the conversation, rather than attempting to put it in a chokehold. People are talking about your brand anyway, so you may as well get down in the weeds and know what’s going on.
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