This article has excerpts from: Social Marketing Analytics Report by Web Analytics Demystified And Altimeter Group. Please visit http://john.webanalyticsdemystified.com/2010/04/22/new-research-on-social-marketing-analytics/ for more details, formulas, and to download the report.
We are living a world of constant flux. Technologies emerge, communication channels open and consumer behaviors adapt. These changes are apparent in the ways in which consumers interact with marketers and their brands as well as the ways in which consumers empower one another. Marketers are experimenting with all sorts of online marketing and social media channels without properly understanding the results it is generating for them.
Social media measurement means so many different things to different people that there’s no one way to define the exact need. Hence, the measurement of social media activities requires assessment of the performance of social media initiatives in the context of unique business objectives for each organization.
Key things to keep in mind before you measure your social media initiatives:
- Align success metrics with business objectives and create a solid measurement framework: Merely collecting digital data without cause is a recipe for disaster. Align key success metrics with business objectives and then look for vendors who have appropriate offering and can give you customized solutions. Create a social media measurement playbook that aligns your organization on the goals, objectives, expectations and actions of your social marketing efforts. Then map those capabilities with measurement technologies and process to get the job done. This requires a pragmatic strategy and a measurement framework that is unique to your company.
- Make learning your primary goal: Every measurable business objective provides an opportunity to learn about consumers and the ways in which they interact with you, your brand and each other. Social Marketing Analytics lets you understand these behaviors, test new initiatives and improve the overall effectiveness.
The social media measurement framework:
No single set of objectives can accommodate all business models or corporate initiatives. But the four important objectives that serve as a foundation for effectively measuring social marketing using an objective-based methodology include:
- Foster Dialog
- Promote Advocacy
- Facilitate Support
- Spur Innovation
Let’s discuss each of the objectives and the associated Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) in detail.
Social Business Objective: Foster Dialog
Dialog involves starting a conversation and offering your audience something to talk about while allowing that conversation to take on a life of its own. With measurement, Dialog provides knowledge back to the organization.
Dialog requires:
- Building awareness and word of mouth activity through conversations by creating original content on blogs, communities, or any other social channel that offers information as a catalyst for discussion.
- Engaging with individuals to determine their response to ideas, thoughts, products and activities generated by the organization.
- Responding to individuals on behalf of the brand through genuine interactions.
The key performance indicators for fostering dialog are:
- Share of Voice: Share of Voice is the relative percentage of brand mentions in social channels (i.e., articles, blogs, comments, Tweets, videos, etc.) among a competitive set.
- Audience Engagement: Audience Engagement is the proportion of visitors who participate in a specific marketing initiative by contributing comments, sharing or linking back.
- Conversation Reach: Conversation Reach is the number of unique visitors who participate in a specific brand/issue/topic conversation across one or more social media channels.
Social Business Objective: Promote Advocacy
The business objective of consumer advocacy enlists the support and dedication of individuals that are ambassadors for certain products, brands or organizations, despite having no official connection. Advocacy allows businesses to extend their reach beyond their immediate circles of influence by taking advantage of word of mouth and viral activity.
Advocacy requires:
- Encouraging word of mouth activity by promoting and endorsing conversations shared by individuals.
- Developing relationships with individuals who have an affinity towards the brand.
- Nurturing existing relationships with customers as a proven method of building advocacy within an easily identified segment.
Key Performance Indicators that indicate the health of an advocacy program are:
- Active Advocates: Active Advocates include the number of individuals generating positive sentiment over a given time frame (i.e., past 30 days).
- Advocate Influence: Advocate Influence is the relative percentage of influence for an individual advocate across one or more social media channels.
- Advocacy Impact: Advocacy Impact is the direct or indirect contributions of advocacy on conversions.
Social Business Objective: Facilitate Support
The capability to provide support through social channels is imperative.
Support requires:
- Resolving service issues through social media channels via direct company response and crowdsourcing alternatives.
- Expediting issue resolution with quality and integrity.
- Elevate satisfaction through flexible support options.
Performance indicators for customer support can be compared to traditional channels include:
- Resolution Rate: Social Media Issue Resolution Rate is the percentage of customer service inquiries resolved satisfactorily using social media channels.
- Resolution Time: Resolution Time is the amount of minutes/hours/days required to produce a human-generated response to customer service issues posed in social media channels.
- Satisfaction Score: Customer Satisfaction Score is an indexed score indicating the relative satisfaction of customers.
Social Business Objective: Spur Innovation
Organizations that are truly listening to their customers take cues from social media comments, suggestions and conversations to source and identify product needs, service requirements and other innovation opportunities.
Innovation requires:
- Gathering customer insights via social media channels with a clear mission of identifying market needs and service opportunities.
- Processing ideas and community feedback as a means to drive products and services requires receptive product managers.
- Delivering new products and services to the market with credit and acknowledgement to customers.
Performance indicators for Innovation include:
- Topic Trends: Topic Trends include key brand/product/service topics identified by monitoring social media conversations.
- Sentiment Ratio: Sentiment Ratio is the ratio of positive: neutral: negative brand mentions about specific products or services over a given time period.
- Idea Impact: Idea Impact is the rate of interaction, engagement and positive sentiment generated from a new product or service idea.