Marketing Mars

I’ve come across this time and again with several clients that I currently work with and there’s always been this conflict; both internally and with the client; on what are the right metrics to measure when you are using social media marketing?

I often get asked this question: Why measure metrics on social media at all? Well its simple, if you’re not measuring any activity thats impacting your business then why do it at all? But I digress. I’d like to however call your attention to the very fact that we need to define what real metrics are when it comes to social media marketing. Is it traffic, is it the number of conversions you get or is it the number of people who start talking about you.

Now let’s get to the bottom of this…there are 2 very distinct things to keep in mind when using the social media. You need to be very clear on what you’re using it for. Is it for PR or for lead generation?

What metrics would I measure if I’m using the social media for PR?

Firstly Social media for PR is a different ball game. Here’s where you’re trying to generate a buzz about your prodcut/service and/or brand. Here’ you’d ideally look at the following metrics:

1) How many influencers have I contacted?

2) What have they said about me - Understanding their tone - positive, negative, neutral.

3) How much has the buzz spread - this can be tracked by the comments, diggs, stumble upons etc

4) How many new links to your product/service has been added

5) How many conversions/Leads - Conversion/Lead definition is an absolute must.

Use tools like Attentio (www.attentio.com) to track and see how the buzz is working. This tool actually allows you to get to the right influencers. I’ll talk more of this in an upcoming post.

But very importantly you need to outline your goals and create plans around them.

What metrics would I measure if I’m using the social media for Lead Generation

The simplistic approach is to say “number of leads generated”. While I agree thats the bottom line, what you as a  marketer need to understand  SMM (social media marketing) is NOT like paid search. There is no on and off switch. Generating leads from the social media has a direct co-relation to what activities you are doing…so it becomes more of a Metrics Whining VS Need for action. How active are you in the social space is going to have a big big impact on what leads you get. Also more importantly, how effectively are you executing those activities.

Look at each social media channel and effective benchmark metrics. For example..if you’re doing something on YouTube..you don’t always look at the number of leads you have got from YouTube; its the number of people who have viewed your videos over time as a metric for how well you are engaging the YouTube community. For social bookmarking, tracking over time how many people have bookmarked your website and looking as what tags or words they use to describe it, is a good way to understand your brand’s presence online.

Now I’m not saying it’s not worthing tracking the metrics above to inform your marketing moves, but if you don’t track how it impacts the business, why bother? But, for the majority of b2b, small and mid sized businesses, ecommerce sites, it’s about visits, leads and sales. Since these things can drive traffic, I’d certainly advocate doing them. Most times a B2B sales cycle is 3-6 months. However, if you want to measure something further up the funnel that has a shorter time span to it you need to get knee deep in these.

So for those wondering where all the social media metrics are? My answer to you is to strategize for your clients and develop the campaigns that will generate metrics for those to follow in your footsteps. The hallmark of this mode of marketing will be creativity and authentic conversations with consumers. But at the end of the day social media marketing will build sustainable growth only so far as you’re empowering the community of your customers.

To take a page out of Michael Brito’s blog: Think POST

Have fun

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 28th, 2008 at 3:47 pm and is filed under Social Media Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.