Social Media Metrics

1. Social Media Metrics Author: Thomas Strapko

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

3. How do you know what to measure? • 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)

4. 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

5. How do you know what to measure? • 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

6. How do you know what to measure? • 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

7. How do you know what to measure? • 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

8. Social Media Metrics • 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!

9. What Do These Two Figures Have In Common?

10. What Do These Two Figures Have In Common?

11. Who? • All marketing decision makers and C level executives

12. Why? • The trends indicate a growing acceptance of using social media as a significant piece of company marketing strategy:

13. Trends in Social Media Metrics

14. Trends

15. Why? • 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).

16. 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

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

18. Where? • Anywhere the internet is present, therefore everywhere

19. How? • You must identify your goals, to make the measurements useful.

20. Brief History of Marketing in the Industrial Era • 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

21. Social Media in the New 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.

22. What is Social Media? • 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. • Social Media Metrics

23. Categories of 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 – Stumbleuponand Digg • Media Sharing – YouTube and Flickr

24. Social Metrics that Matter to Marketers • 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

25. Social Metrics that Matter to Executives • Revenue • Cost • Customer satisfaction • If you can not tie your metrics to the following, your efforts will fall by the wayside very quickly

26. What Are Our Goals As A Business?

27. Applying Social Media Metrics to Sales

28. Step 1: Focus on Goals 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* engagementIf your goal is sales, then measure:* engagement index* cost per customer acquisition* web analytics* sales leads* marketing mix modeling

29. Some possible measurements • #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

30. Applying Social Media Metrics to Sales • 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

31. Some Possible Measurements • #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

32. 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

33. Step 2: How Do You Get Attention? • 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?

34. Case Study: United States Navy on Facebook • 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!

35. Well Known Brands

36. Step 2: How Do You Get Attention? • Awareness: How many people saw what you wrote? This is very information to acquire by a site such as www.google.com/support/feedburner, feedburnerworks 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)

37. Step 2: How Do You Get Attention? • 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

38. Step 3: Identifying Influence • 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

39. Step 3: Identifying Influence • Sites like Mashableand 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.

40. Step 3: Identifying Influence • 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.

41. Step 3: Identifying Influence • 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.

42. Applying Social Media Metrics to Sales

43. Applying Social Media Metrics to Sales http://www.klout.com

44. Step 4: Recognize Customer Attitudes • 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)

45. Step 4: Recognize Customer Attitudes http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbkS8AnqNGU

46. Step 5: Customer Action • Are potential customers becoming more engaged in new ways? • This is where you would measure you social media efforts via blogging, tweeting, YouTube,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?

47. 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.

48. Case Study • The American Outdoorsman • Goal: Expand brand association with outdoor adventure to attract large retailers. • Goal: Gain retail licensing program.

49. 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.

50. 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.