A Guide to Measure Your Social Media Marketing

By Pierre DeBois

Social media has brought unprecedented change in the way a business markets its services and products online, as well as how it communicates to customers.

But how much of that change is being measured?  From the latest industry surveys, very little, despite heavy investment.  Yet with more corporations employing social media for branding, lead awareness and sales, the need for relevant metrics has become essential to successful financial performance.  Books on social media have appeared, but few have dealt with metrics from an analytics framework.  Until now.

Jim Sterne is no stranger to the Web analytics community.  Founder of the E-metrics Marketing Optimization summit and co-founder of the Web Analytics Association, Sterne  has tirelessly guided the discussion of digital marketing.  Now, Sterne has created a short guide to optimizing your digital marketing called Social Media Metrics: How to Measure and Optimize Your Marketing Investment.  I bought a copy to review, and feel that while the book is geared for large organizations, small business owners wishing to best manage their resources will benefit too.

Improve Your Social Media Gauge

Sterne says it best in the opening pages:

“This book is more for marketers who already know that social media is important and want to get a better handle on managing it as a serious business tool.”

And he wastes no time getting into the nitty-gritty of  measurement planning.  For example, Chapter 1 quotes a Web Analytics Demystified post on how to prioritize analysis around organizational requests:

• Is revenue at risk?
• Who’s asking?
• How difficult is the request?
• Can it (the analysis) be self serviced?
• When is the analysis needed?
• Why is the analysis needed?

A small business owner may not face all the aforementioned questions, but some of the questions may help apply some thought to developing a social media dashboard and asking the right questions around the three basic business goals in the book: increasing revenue, lowering cost, and increasing customer satisfaction.  Although referencing many corporate sources, the book complements social media beginner references, such as Chris Brogan’s Social Media 101, and also works well on its own.

Throughout the book Sterne combines numerous references to studies and resources, such as Groundswell author Charlene Li and Web Analytics 2.0 author Avinash Kaushik, regarding blogging ROI and opportunity cost.  Analytics resources like Eric Peterson’s Big Book of KPIs (a free e-book on business metrics) are also referenced.

Sterne first lays out the social media categories — blogs, microblogs, forums, review sites, social networks, bookmarking and media sharing.  Chapters 2 through 6 covers the kinds of measurement used — Reach, Influence, Sentiment, Triggering Action (Engagement) and Listening — while each social media category is included where appropriate.  Sterne takes time to explain what tools are available, and gives an overview of measurement results.  In an automotive example, he explains how hub-and-spoke relationships can measure influence and reach via tagging URLs:

“The first step is to code the links you publish so that when the are republished and re-tweeted, any clicks can be traced back to the original tweet or post.  That means a normal link like www.example.com becomes www.example.com?1234. You can count the number of times the code 1234 shows up in your analytics database to determine how far-reaching that post or tweet was.”

He then compares the tracking between subjects (power and style) in an example hub-and-spoke figure.

“You now have a clear understanding of what intrigues people most about your new vehicle. You have marketplace insight you can act on. You know how to tweak your tweets.”

This is analytic essence made into accessible language for small business owners and marketers alike.

Resources Available

For experiences with social media, Sterne uses familiar corporate examples, like Dell’s IdeaStorm, as well as some interesting how-do-they-do-its, like BestBuy’s use of Twelpforce to answer whatever Twitter-sourced questions appear.  Other tools mentioned include Twittratr, PostRank and Nielsen Buzzmetrics, along with a resource appendix that includes more on social media metrics, a free tool summary and insights from other respected marketers such as Jeremiah Owyang.

Chapter 7 focuses on business outcomes, with an underscore that social media is best seen as a long-term investment, warning that “regardless of what business outcome you are hoping, planning and working for…social media results take time.” Suggested metrics are offered here, while Chapter 8, Convincing Your Colleagues, brings up the current analytics challenges in organizations.  For example, Sterne notes the unspoken concern employees sometimes feel, in that they see analytics as more of a personal audit:

“First and foremost humans do not like being measured… ‘Accountability’ is another word for “We don’t trust you so we’re going to measure everything you do.”

Sterne then segues into an example given by a Symantec vice president which crystallizes the other challenge in introducing measurement responsibility and convincing departments of the benefits:

“Besides doing more with less, we’re asking people to add a page tag here and a reporting mechanism there. “

Sterne covers a few topics on organizational expectations and becoming a measurement leader (a recurring theme in many analytics books like Analytics At Work), though he admits at chapter’s end the topic of change management is too large to be covered effectively.  Still, you will definitely learn to manage people as much as the metrics and measurement tools given.

Glaring negatives are few. The book does not elaborate on the impact of some recent online developments, such as mobile devices (I know there has been discussion in some circles regarding measurement of digital magazine articles shared), applications and location-based services such as Foursquare and Gowalla.  Sterne does note this as he lays out the social media categories — “…more will appear before this book hits the streets.”  However, some further consideration would have given readers insight on how to prepare for more change in a fast-moving medium.

A Useful Guide

Overall, Sterne has taken a solid tone and approach with Social Media Metrics. It explains the value of social media in a style that complements strategies for organizations large and small, for-profit and nonprofit.  By any measure, Social Media Metrics is a truly helpful guide in the online marketing jungle.

Source: http://smallbiztrends.com/2010/08/social-media-metrics-business.html

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Facebook is taking social media marketing seriously

Last week I received a surprising email from Facebook entitled ‘Your Weekly Facebook Page Update’. It contained an overview of all the Facebook pages I am an admin of, with statistics on the number of new fans, wall posts and visits to the page.

Those of us who use Facebook and other social media sites in a professional capacity have been aching for reliable metrics to judge the success of our social media marketing campaigns.

Facebook launched its Insights tool in late 2007 as a means for page admins to gather data on what happened on their pages and get some basic demographical data on the composition of their fan base. However, since then there’s been remarkably little movement by Facebook on the analytics front.

This latest move is an indication that Facebook is starting to take the professional use of their social media platform more seriously, and can be seen as an outreach to social media marketers.

The fact that several professional web analytics vendors such as Omniture and WebTrends have recently announced new Facebook tracking features, makes this latest move from Facebook just that little bit juicier.

Perhaps Facebook is trying to pave the way for its own (paid) analytics package, that will hopefully allow admins to gain deeper insights in to how visitors reach their pages and how they interact with it.

This will hopefully help take a lot of the guesswork out of social media marketing, and allow clients of social media marketers to demand clearer ROI on their investment.

Barry Adams is online marketing specialist at Visual Script, a Belfast-based full service web studio. He spends way too much time on Facebook and somehow manages to pass it off as ‘work’.

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Social Media Marketing Strategy Twitter vs. Facebook: Which is Better

Social Media marketing strategy comparison between Facebook and Twitter to determine which produces better results for businesses and online marketers.

Online PR News – 26-March-2010 – Comparison study of the Social Media marketing strategy benefits of Twitter verse Facebook. The goal was to determine which of these social media marketing platforms offers the best strategies for the specialized needs of businesses and online marketers. What follows is a formal summary of this detailed Social Media marketing analysis.

To view a release containing information on parts 1, 2, and 3 of this study visit: Read more

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Investment firms look at social media

Investment companies have developed a significant Internet presence by helping people learn about finance, execute trades, retrieve account statements and more. But they’re lagging somewhat when it comes to social media.

Brokerages, mutual-fund firms and other investment entities are still trying to decide how to connect with customers and prospects through sites and applications such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn and their own Internet blogs. Read more

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Cheap Search Engine Optimization For Budget SEO Minded People

By Taylor G Reaume

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How Social Media can help improve Organic Search Rankings

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Is Social Media Marketing Sustainable?

Social Media Marketing, being an emerging concept is still undiscovered for most of the individuals associated with web business and having most of the aspects unexplored, the sustainability of SMM is still a question mark. Though getting about rapidly, not everyone is familiar with the inner structure of SMM and the best use of it. The present culture of Social Media Marketing is relying more on extensive stumbling and digging etc that has not only shown the concept of SMM a convergent approach but also deployed its original essence.

Social Media Marketing is a divergent phenomenon, whereby the strategies are based on choices and preferences, tastes, variations and innovations, and something that supports a constant variation in procedures is always sustainable. But the present digging/stumbling culture and paid opinions may reel back the sustainability to the ninth degree. The true SMM culture can, however, be established only by having the inside picture of it, i.e. understanding the situation and nature of business and knowing that the variation will need equal change in strategies, outlining the short and long term objectives, and then using the appropriate social media tools in accordance with the research.

Whatever the situations are, marketers must know that:

1. He’s to think like a user not provider, as SMM is volatile in nature and knowing what audience likes is the key to success.
2. He’s to build relations based on trust because in Social Media that is open for all, the vulnerability to unethical practices is relatively high.
3. It needs parallel time to research and analyze the audience and to build an effective network.
4. It’s a learning process and you find something new each time you develop or execute a single strategy.
5. Knowingly relaying false information may let you get a single step ahead but the long run will be a dead end.
6. Since the SMM model works on choices, preferences, attitudes, tastes and style, no such thing can get about that’s not sought for.
7. It’s your identity that works more than you, so making best use of it is the way to leave imprints in all possible and related area of influence.
8. If you want others to abide by certain rules, be a live example.

Knowing these basics of SMM opens a sustainable end. Let’s say I follow the unplanned current Social Media Marketing tricks to improve the visibility of my content, but when I come to know that it’s of no use, I’ll probably end by giving it up. That’s what people term as ‘unsustainable’ end of Social Media Marketing, but in fact it’s nothing to do with the sustainability, instead the fault lies in the approach. If I happen to explore the fault and reconcile, it’ll certainly work and in long run of course.

SMM may be taken away from its exactness by unethical social media practices, time and budget constraint, and unplanned use of SM tools etc, but it’s still sustainable for those who have a thorough knowledge of Social Media, Internet Marketing, Behavioral Mapping, excellent Communication Skills and System, and above all Target Marketing. All these attributes of sustainable Social Media Marketing may be summed up as SMM Education, which is crucial if the best out of SMM is desired.

The duplicate content issue and incorporation of million of sites and reduced time frame for accessing all available data may also restrict SMM from being effective technique, but technology if incorporated accordingly can resolve this issue as well, i.e. iPhone and FEEDM8.

The sustainability of Social Media Marketing is a never-ending debate, holding justifications both in favor and against, but the opportunities it has for young entrepreneurs and experienced professionals hark back to its constructive incorporation. For some, it’s as sustainable as any other buzz-generating medium while for others it might be just a temporary stage. The business end of SMM, however, aims to benefit both the individual and the organization. The business gets exposure while becoming a Social Media expert by having hold at networks like Facebook, LinkedIn, and forums etc along with good communication skills and knowledge of commercial markets are what the leading brands scout about. In a nutshell it’s more fun learning and earning through Social Media, and the sustainability of SMM depends on the efficiency of marketer.

Source: http://www.templatesfactory.net/articles/is-social-media-marketing-sustainable.html

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