Author: Thomas Strapko. The Marketplace is a conversation, companies can either join the...

Social Media MetricsAuthor:

Thomas Strapko

“The Marketplace is a conversation”, companies can either join the conversation or go crazy trying to shout their message at it.” Jim Stearne

Social Media Metrics

Volume of consumer-created buzz for a brand based on number of posts Amount of buzz based on number of impressions Shift in buzz over time Buzz by time of day / daypart Seasonality of buzz Competitive buzz Buzz by category / topic Buzz by social channel (forums, social networks, blogs, Twitter, etc) Buzz by stage in purchase funnel (e.g., researching vs. completing transaction vs. post-

purchase) Asset popularity (e.g., if several videos are available to embed, which is used more) Mainstream media mentions Fans Followers Friends Growth rate of fans, followers, and friends Rate of virality / pass-along Change in virality rates over time Second-degree reach (connections to fans, followers, and friends exposed - by people or

impressions)

How do you know what to measure?

Embeds / Installs Downloads Uploads User-initiated views (e.g., for videos) Ratio of embeds or favoriting to views Likes / favorites Comments Ratings Social bookmarks Subscriptions (RSS, podcasts, video series) Pageviews (for blogs, microsites, etc) Effective CPM based on spend per impressions received Change in search engine rankings for the site linked to through social media Change in search engine share of voice for all social sites promoting the brand Increase in searches due to social activity Percentage of buzz containing links Links ranked by influence of publishers Percentage of buzz containing multimedia (images, video, audio) Share of voice on social sites when running earned and paid media in same environment Influence of consumers reached Influence of publishers reached (e.g., blogs) Influence of brands participating in social channels Demographics of target audience engaged with social channels Demographics of audience reached through social media Social media habits/interests of target audience


Geography of participating consumers Sentiment by volume of posts Sentiment by volume of impressions Shift in sentiment before, during, and after social marketing programs Languages spoken by participating consumers Time spent with distributed content Time spent on site through social media referrals Method of content discovery (search, pass-along, discovery engines, etc) Clicks Percentage of traffic generated from earned media View-throughs Number of interactions Interaction/engagement rate Frequency of social interactions per consumer Percentage of videos viewed Polls taken / votes received


Brand association Purchase consideration Number of user-generated submissions received Exposures of virtual gifts Number of virtual gifts given Relative popularity of content Tags added Attributes of tags (e.g., how well they match the brand's perception of itself) Registrations from third-party social logins (e.g., Facebook Connect, Twitter OAuth) Registrations by channel (e.g., Web, desktop application, mobile application, SMS, etc) Contest entries Number of chat room participants Wiki contributors Impact of offline marketing/events on social marketing programs or buzz User-generated content created that can be used by the marketer in other channels Customers assisted Savings per customer assisted through direct social media interactions compared to other

channels (e.g., call centers, in-store) Savings generated by enabling customers to connect with each other Impact on first contact resolution (FCR) (hat tip to Forrester Research for that one) Customer satisfaction Volume of customer feedback generated


Research & development time saved based on feedback from social media Suggestions implemented from social feedback Costs saved from not spending on traditional research Impact on online sales Impact on offline sales Discount redemption rate Impact on other offline behavior (e.g., TV tune-in) Leads generated Products sampled Visits to store locator pages Conversion change due to user ratings, reviews Rate of customer/visitor retention Impact on customer lifetime value Customer acquisition / retention costs through social media Change in market share Earned media's impact on results from paid media Responses to socially posted events Attendance generated at in-person events Employees reached (for internal programs) Job applications received


The point of the previous slides was the show how most marketers feel about social media. Because of the sheer volume of information, they are too often willing to bypass social media.

The point here is not to measure everything, but to incorporate social media into your business strategy. You must have GOALS!


What Do These Two Figures Have In Common?

All marketing decision makers and C level executives

Who?

The trends indicate a growing acceptance of using social media as a significant piece of company marketing strategy:

Why?

Trends in Social Media Metrics

Trends

74% of all Chief Marketing Officers will tie social media spending to ROI in 2011 (Bazaarvoice). In addition, 53% of CMO’s will increase their company’s social media budget in 2011 (marketing Sherpa).

Why?

“While much has been written questioning the value of social media, this landmark study has found that the most valuable brands in the world are experiencing a direct correlation between top financial performance and deep social media engagement. The relationship is apparent and significant: Socially engaged companies are in fact more financially successful.”

Engagement db: Ranking the Top 100 Global Brands

Why?

As indicated by the social media efforts of other companies, if you haven’t already started, you are behind the eight-ball.

When?

Anywhere the internet is present, therefore everywhere

Where?

You must identify your goals, to make the measurements useful.

How?

Classic push sales style. Marketing focused exclusively on Public Relations and Avertising.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5y4b-DEkIps&feature=share

During the Glory Days of advertising, Don Draper understood the desire of people to exercise choice

Brief History of Marketing in the Industrial Era




The internet is unique because of its one to many approach, which allows users who understand the medium to leverage an incredible set of tools.

Social Media in the New Era

The first many to many communication channel, “it is that which allows anybody to communicate with everybody.” In other words, consumer generated content distributed through easy to access online tools.


What is Social Media?

Forums and Message Boards – Review and Opinion Sites – Amazon.com

and Epinions.com Social Networks- Facebook, LinkedIn, and

Myspace Blogging Microblogging – Twitter Bookmarking – Stumbleupon and Digg Media Sharing – YouTube and Flickr

Categories of Social Media

Likes/followers Retweets Comments Mentions @replies All of these will indicate the level of

progress and whether or not you a building a community that is engaged

While this is directional, these metrics have little value to the average executive

Social Metrics that Matter to Marketers

Revenue Cost Customer satisfaction If you can not tie your metrics to the

following, your efforts will fall by the wayside very quickly

Social Metrics that Matter to Executives

What Are Our Goals As A Business?

Applying Social Media Metrics to Sales

What are the goals of Business?

Increase revenue Decrease cost Increase customer satisfaction

If your goal is improving reputation or relationships with your audiences, then measure:

* relationship scores* recommendations* positioning* engagement

If your goal is sales, then measure:

* engagement index* cost per customer acquisition* web analytics* sales leads* marketing mix modeling

Step 1: Focus on Goals

#1 Brand Awareness: If the goal is to create more brand awareness, two things need to be quantified:

Number of people that the message is exposed to

The subsequent actions taken based on this metric

Measured like “old school” advertising: Cost Per Impression, Cost Per Click, Cost Per Engagement, Cost Per Site Visit

Some possible measurements

Exposure is a measurement of Brand Awareness

By reaching more people at the top of the funnel, this is likely to lead to higher sales as an end product


#2 Customer Retention: Encourage customers to stay longer, buy more and buy more often depending on the product

Measured by: Customer Retention Rates, Average Revenue Per Purchase, Average Units Per Purchase, Average Transactions Per Customer, Lifetime Value of a Customer

Some Possible Measurements

#3 Lead Generation: Can you show that social media contributed

to the sale? Usually measured by lead forms and sales. It is measured by the following: Cost Per

Lead, Cost Per Subscriber, Cost Per Sale, Average Revenue Per Sale, Average Units Per Sale, Conversion Rate of Leads

Some Possible Measurements

Being successful in social media is about more than the number of eyeballs that have seen the message

Although a wide audience is necessary, engagement is the integral factor

Who are the stakeholders? * What's important to them?* Where do they go for information?* What do you want them to know?

Step 2: How Do You Get Attention?

Facebook page acts as a communication bridge between current and former Navy personnel, family, Navy followers.

Returns include: 7,000-20,000 Facebook interactions, 500-700 mentions on Twitter, 2,500-3,000 visits to the Navy blog, 10,000-15,000 referrals to Navy.mil

PER WEEK!

Case Study: United States Navy on Facebook

Well Known Brands

Awareness: How many people saw what you wrote? This is very information to acquire by a site such as www.google.com/support/feedburner, feedburner works for how many people have taken action, viewed or clicked on your page,

Engagement: When somebody cares and interacts. In other words when your brand affinity is high but your interaction is low, you are not engaged. You may choose to start a blog through a variety of aformentioned channels.

“The net of promoters minus detractors doesn’t show up in your profit and loss statements, but the detractors destroy your future” (Frederick Reichheld p. 133)


http://www.google.com/support/feedburner

Engagement: This is the stage where the rubber really meets the road. A perspective customer must now engage with your brand.

Could be measured by number of messages Re-Tweeted, clicks on your link, website visits, or took other actions as a result of exposure to your brand


Need to examine three key measurements: Message multiplier tells you whether the message is popular or prosaic by measuring

what people thought was worth repeating Velocity how quickly the message spread and the scope of the message Reach The previous measures tell you if the message is resonating These measurements will allow you to gain insight into the messages effectiveness. Is

the message resonating with the target group? Influence is about: size of audience, degree of connectedness, and the power of their

voice Levels: readers, fans, repeaters (why keep score? Because if you can discover the

people who are evangelizing others, you should devote part of your target market to them)

Twitter measures: Number of followers, followers of followers (the multiplier effect is huge here), tweet recency and frequency, ratio of following to follower, retweets, Michael Jackson example. Twitter is impossible to measure well. Human coders only agreed on the message conveyed in the tweet 68% of the time. Therefore trend analysis tools in this area should be directional rather than absolute.

Types of influencers: key influencers (journalists for example, propound to the masses and exhibit a critical mass of followers, social influencers (everyday people who purchase and are very active, known peer influencers (closest to the purchasing decision and the consumer, have great background knowledge about consumer)

Socialmention.com

Step 3: Identifying Influence

Sites like Mashable and Stumbleupon are considered influencer sites.

In addition, you can use Klout scores to track influencers. This involves setting minimum values for influence within Klout and having the Klout measure your audience for influence above that threshold.


Measuring Engagement by Facebook: New Page Likes, Posted Link Clicks, Site Visits, Comments, Content Likes, Photo/Video Views.

Measuring Engagement by Twitter: New Followers, Posted Link Clicks, Site Visits, Mentions, Retweets, Direct Messages.


Influence measures the importance of each Facebook “like” or Twitter follower

Using a site such as Klout can assist you in measuring influence. Klout allows you to link social media sites together to produce a “Klout” score.

Why is this important? People will buy products from those that they

are associated with rather than a stranger. A high Klout score makes it likely that you are

associated with influencers who will in turn influence others regarding your product.


http://www.klout.com


http://www.klout.com/

Most effectively captured by Analytics tools such as Radian 6 or Google Analytics which can measure attitudinal shifts over time to accurately assess brand equity among other things

Join socialmention.com, search twitter, use Google alerts

Why is Amazon so successful? People still have highest levels of trust for people who are “like them” (Edelmen Trust Barometer, Nov 2007) and recommendation is the number one reason people choose a certain site (Royal Mail’s Home Shopping Tracker Study, Sep 2007) and review users said that reviews generated by fellow consumers had a greater influence than those generated by professionals (comScore/ The Kelsey Group, October 2007)

Step 4: Recognize Customer Attitudes

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbkS8AnqNGU

Step 4: Recognize Customer Attitudes



Are potential customers becoming more engaged in new ways?

This is where you would measure you social media efforts via blogging, tweeting, You Tube,etc.

Are your efforts increasing engagement? Digg, Stumbleupon, etc measure noteworthiness.

Social Media Standards have three things: How many people shared a link to your content,

how many links have been shared, how many people clicked through it in a given time span?

Increasing brand loyalty?

Step 5: Customer Action

Conversion: Two aspects to conversion. First, completed lead forms where a

customers contact information is acquired. Second, the actual completed sale which is

the pot of gold at the end of the tunnel. The two are not necessarily sequential.

Step 5: Customer Action

The American Outdoorsman Goal: Expand brand association with

outdoor adventure to attract large retailers. Goal: Gain retail licensing program.

Case Study

Action: Developed an outdoor website to promote online recreation activities.

Action: Identified influencers in various outdoor activities.

Action: Started a blog and included stories about outdoor adventure activities.

Action: Tweeted about adventure activities while filming their TV shows.

Case Study

Measurement: Measured word association with their brand and saw keywords such as adventure, outdoor, activities, experts, professional, and training show up in their keyword cloud.

Measurement: Illustrated the strong positive association with the brand and compared it to that of target retailers.

Case Study

Ultimately, American Outdoors landed a multi-million dollar licensed goods program with a retailer over a three year period.

The cost of social media associated with listening, engaging, and measuring totaled:

$25,000!

Case Study

Is your message getting to the right people at the right time? This allows you a window into the marketplace to see and

understand what your customers are feeling. To be effective, this must change customer service, support,

and business strategy. Listen to them: praise and complaints Ask them to participate Ask them to contribute How can you measure Twelpforce? Best Buy is tracking by

Brand Value: Has TF positively or negatively impacted your impression of BB? Has TF improved your perception of BB 24/7 avail? Has TF improved your perception of BB’s offering expert advice? Has TF improved your perception of BB’s ability to fix a problem? Did TF initiate a visit to a BB store?

Step 6: Tuning Into the Conversation

This is where you circle back around and measure what impact your social media efforts are having on business outcomes.

Are you meeting the goals laid out by the big three goals of business?

Measure Success:

* To measure web traffic, use Google Analytics. It's free and easy to use.* To measure your incoming marketing (search) effectiveness, use Hubspot. Get started with their free Website Grader.* Measure your relationships with online surveys at SurveyMonkey.

Without context the measurements don’t matter and with business goals, the metrics are hollow

Step 7: Examine the Outcome

Awareness: How many people know about your company or offering?

Survey completions: How many people are willing to answer your questions?

Subscriptions: How many people signed up for your newsletter, blog, or tweets?

Registrations: How many people want to be a member of your club?

Blog Comments: How many were engaged in conversation? Blog Posts: How many mentioned you to others? Leads: How many are potential customers? Purchases: How many actually bought something from you?

What Are Desirable Business Outcomes?

Establish Benchmarks: what was data like before implementing social media?

Develop Strategy: how does social media support my business goals?

Measure Results: will vary depending on industry, but it must be connected to the bottom line.

Correlate Traditional and Online Metrics: this will vary by industry.

It is important to remember that data without context is just NOISE!

How To Get Started

An affective Social Media Marketing Balanced Scorecard considers metrics from four different perspectives:

Financial: Has revenue or profit increased or costs decreased? Brand: Have consumer attitudes about the brand improved? Risk Management: Is the organization better prepared to note and

respond to attacks or problems that affect reputation? Digital: Has the company enhanced its owned and earned digital

assets?

Scorecard Example from Forrester Research

Measured in potential, not actual reach. Add up friend and follower counts of those who

share your content to attain total potential reach. Share of Conversation: how present and

recognized you are among the conversations that you want to be associated with.

Strength of Referrals/Recommendations: split into direct recommendations (request for information or referrals from the larger community) and implied recommendations (general positive sentiment).

Measuring Awareness, Attention, and Reach

Attribution or direct cause which indicates that the social media is the sales channel itself.

Correlation: after tracking sales in the aggregate, tracking spending on social media and social media activity increase, from there if both increase you can correlate the data.

Lead Generation: After gathering all lead data, look at how many leads have been tagged with a social media source and what is the percentage of your lead pipeline?

Conversion Rates: A successful interaction according to your measurements, not necessarily a sale.

Direct Response sales: provide a unique mechanism for people to buy that is exclusive ala Dell special deals on Twitter.

Measuring Leads, Conversations, and Sales

Cost Per Issue Resolution: Measuring what it costs to resolve issues through traditional channels such as a call center.Issue Resolution Time: How long it takes from inception until a case is closed?Cost Per Dollar Raised: Cost of an advertising campaign against total potential reach and then calculate how much it will cost to reach every thousand people.

Measuring Cost Savings

Use ratios, averages, and percentages rather than raw data

Use stoplights, thermometers and the like rather than pie charts and graphs

Highlight change over time instead of showing data tables

Remember that effective KPI’s drive action

Tips for presenting the Business Indicators

Intuit uses Radian 6 to compute reach, influence, and sentiment Still use humans to categorize comments ranging from very positive to very

negative In 2008, ran a contest called Super Status to answer 30 mini challenges to

problems and had to use Facebook, Myspace, or Twitter. Had a hard time measuring value added at first. Trying to measure the affect

of the contest on familiarity with Intuit, brand image, and purchase intent The master stroke was the manager of social media marketing partnering

with the group manager of research and added a twist; they asked the participants to send a link to the questionnaire to their friends

The contest lifted brand image among frequent contest participants of eight percent against control group

In measurements such as: the brand I trust, value for the money, worth paying more for an easy way to get a big refund, it does the work for me, it gives me the confidence to do my own taxes, it’s the easiest way to prepare my own taxes; each of these statements received an increase of between 9 and 14 percent.

The icing on the cake is that purchase intent increased by 10 percent

Case Study: Intuit

You have goals You have a way to measure your audience

reach You have a way to maintain and identify

influence You have a way to measure and identify

sentiment You have a way to listen and measure what

you hear You have a way to measure response and

business outcomes

Where do we stand?

If the big three measurements are improving, the results will speak for themselves and stand on their own merits.

How to get buy in: Accept role as a change agent, little rudder turns

big rudder Tailor your message to the person Low Hanging Fruit (share social media success

stories) Make it personal (managers compensation tied to

revenue, etc so stay big) Bring a plan: will it be centralized or distributed

Step 8: Getting Company Buy-In

Utilize the measures to truly transform conversations with executives

Achieving these measurable results requires just that, turning “measurement” into quantifiable results

Understand what needs to be measured, set the direction

How to bridge the gap between the competing goals

Start using Campaign Tracking which will allow you to track a customer from a source to a conversion.

Use link abridging sites like Ow.ly which shorten URL’s.

You can then plug this information into an Analytics program such as Google Analytics which is built into the Campaign Links.

Conversion will show up, telling you which sources were most successful.

Campaign Tracking is very useful because it allows marketers to separate marketing activities to assess the true cost of each effort or item. It will also allow you to identify leads by the source that they were generated from.

How Do You Track Leads via the Sales Funnel?

Look at Whistler Blackcomb as an example of engagement in social media.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOXusAChyEE Results: With 1% of the Marketing Budget

directed toward social media they generated:

Over 500,000 forms of engagement, 128% lift in total impressions, decreased cost per impression by 23%, decreased cost per engagement by 82%, decreased cost per website visit by 86%.

Case Study: Whistler Blackcomb

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOXusAChyEE

Customer retention is key because it is universally accepted that it is cheaper to keep your existing customers rather than cultivate new ones.

Social media is unique because it is part of a conversation about your brands. It allows each company to address negative perceptions and point out the positive ones.

Customer Retention

There are two ways to increase revenue from existing customers:

First, increase the customers will spend at each transaction.

Second, increase the frequency of purchases by each customer.

Customer Retention

Measuring loyalty should be operationalized using three things:

First, surveys can be valuable for direction. Second, the aforementioned revenue

measurements indicate levels of loyalty. Third, you can use the following metrics:

Average number of website visits, Average time on site, Average number of website referrals per customer, Customer retention rate, Average number of online mentions per customer, Lifetime value of a social media customer.

Measuring Customer Loyalty

A challenging task due to social media still being in its infancy

Social media metrics can not be a language of their own

Issues with Social Media Measurement

#1 Social Media is not a fad It is here to stay long term, consider the

following: 900,000 blog posts per day 4-6 million tweets per hour 30 billion pieces of content shared on

Facebook alone per month

Trends in Social Media

#2 Social Media is not simply an “add-on” To be conducted effectively, you need staff

resources dedicated to the following: Planning Creative Insight Content Creation Product Management


#3 Social Media is part of a new wave of cooperative ownership

Public Relations Marketing Sales/Business Development Customer Service Product Development IT Each of these elements must “buy in”


Author: Thomas Strapko. The Marketplace is a conversation, companies can either join the...

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