By Ted Weismann
Not a day--or, if you are on Twitter, not an hour--goes by without discussion about how social media is changing our business. Depending on whom you listen to, its impact on
communications is either revolutionary or evolutionary. I happen to think about it in both ways, depending on the perspective.
From the perspective of our "buying communities"--those we are trying to influence to buy our products/services, donate to our causes, or join our communities--it is
revolutionary. Individuals never have had such powerful, cheap and easy-to-use tools and services to be their own publisher, convey their experiences and get the information they
need from each other.
From a communications perspective, reaching "buyers" directly for a long time has been an important communications objective. For us, it's evolutionary because we can use these
same social channels and services to meet this long-standing objective.
Despite the clear benefits, many organizations still are skeptical. The prevailing perception is that social media is too new and unproven, and in the current economy, there is
little appetite for anything new. The inevitable question is, "what is ROI?" In every conversation with our clients on social media, articulating how you integrate social media
into your program needs to be coupled with how it will be measured.
To be equipped to do so, we need to think about measurement differently. In effect, there should be a new measurement standard, one that blends traditional PR metrics such as
article counts, share of voice and message pull-through, with important new elements:
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Traditional marketing and sales metrics like lead generation and customer satisfaction/retention;
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Traditional interactive marketing metrics like Web traffic and share of search; and,
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New metrics like sentiment, viral value (e.g. how coverage creates word-of-mouth on Twitter, blogs, etc.) and engagement.
This is necessary because social media is blurring the lines between PR and interactive marketing, customer service and sales. More important, it's necessary because ROI is
paramount, and these blended measurements help demonstrate that to marketers and CEOs.
Now is the time to get smart about the measures that we traditionally have not used. Here's how to get started:
1. Reach out to key individuals inside the organization that rely on and have access to the types of measures described above. For example, the director of Web strategy or the
webmaster who are playing a role in search engine optimization and pay-per-click advertising not only can show you the metrics they use to measure the effectiveness of those
programs, but also are likely to be in tune with how social media can enhance them. They can become an important ally if they understand how your ideas will help them.
2. Meet with other agencies (e.g. advertising) supporting the marketing program. This is important, as it helps ensure an integrated marketing approach. Social media presents
even greater synergies, and you will want to think about how your program would contribute to the effectiveness of, for example, driving traffic to a landing page for a particular
offer.
3. Understand from your marketing "clients" what tools they are using to track leads. Whether it is something like Salesforce.com or Eloqua, these tools should be tuned to be
able to identify those leads as coming not only from a media article, but also through a mention on a blog, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube or more targeted social network site.
Through these conversations, not only will you be talking about measurement in the same breath as social media--thereby preempting the questions or objections--but also allow
you to start to build the foundation for executing on measurement of your program. Next, you will need to immerse yourself in other key tools at your disposal to gather the "new
metrics" described above. The list is growing rapidly, but here is grouping of some of the most important:
1. Web analytics: These are the tools used by the Web pros mentioned above, and are important for measuring the traffic coming to the social media content you create (e.g. a
corporate blog or video podcasts). Google Analytics is free and the most pervasive, but others like Feedburner, which tracks subscriptions, are important.
2. Participation: Once someone gets to your content, you'll want to know how they respond, so measuring comments, trackbacks, Twitter replies or "retweets" are important.
Blogging platforms provide this data, as does Twitter's search engine (search.twitter.com) and specialized tools like Radian6.
3. Viral Value: This speaks to how much people are talking about you as a result of a traditional activity like a product announcement or majority media coverage. Radian6 is a
great tool for this as well, but you also can use RSS-based searches.
4. Influence: This is more qualitative in nature, but as you gather the quantitative measures above, it's important to assess who is engaging with you, and how many people
follow them (on Twitter or comment on their blog), as well as what they say (tone, sentiment).
With this foundation and with new tools in your arsenal, the question then becomes what do you do with them to demonstrate the ROI. This richer set of data gives you an ability
to correlate the specific metrics that matter for specific campaigns. For example, you're in a better position to show how the number of leads over a period of time correlate with
media coverage, Web traffic, blog comments, viral word-of-mouth and more. For most executives or marketers, this will break down resistance and shorten the path to a robust social
media program. PRN
CONTACT:
Ted Weismann is senior vice president of Lois Paul & Partners. He can be reached at [email protected].