Measuring Your Social Media Impact

Presented by Vicky Brock @brockvicky#GoMedia11 Canada September 2011

Ready to unleash your inner geek?

Data Empathy Action

1. Passive metricsdamage your health

seek indicators of relevant actions taken by the

target market

“brand” is not an excuse

engagement is when someone both cares and

interacts

2. Start listening as well as talking

“the marketplace is a conversation” – but there’s

also stories in data

3. Beware of "me too" strategies & metrics

only measure what really matters

revenue, costs, satisfaction

Let’s bust some assumptions:

• Social Media is not

- simply advertising- simply direct response marketing- simply PR and comms- operating in a channel silo- something you explicitly control- going away

• It is inherently measurement driven

But, there is no magic single number

80/20

42

3.1415926535897932384626433832795028841971693993

Clicks

13,902 friends

hits Unique Visitors

Advertising Value Equivalents

5 minutes 47.235 seconds

So what?!?

The digital model is now differentYour website is increasingly the conversion engine for activities taking place offsite

Marcomms you shape are only part of your brand conversation

Offsite social interactions amongst your target markets have major impact on brand

Know your goals & the metrics follow

Conversation/retweet rate

Interaction/engagement rate

Shift in sentiment before, during and after social activity

Increase in search due to social/campaign activity

Conversion rate uplift/average order value uplift from social sources

Cost savings relative to another service channel

Registration/request/downloads/orders/bookings rate

Uplift on offline sales

Asset/content popularity

Ratio of favourites to views

Rate of virality/pass alongChange in market share

Lead generation rate

So what?? Good metrics indicate progress towards strategic goals & are actionable. Think fire alarms

First the good news....

Like many tourism businesses, Jacobite uses traditional media, social media, offline and online marketing to drive potential customers to this website. The various media and marketing channels create awareness and desire, the job of this website is to convert those visitors into customers.

You may be doing better than you think

A return on investment of less than 1 suggests social media is failing

BUT, social media is not necessarily a direct response channel. Conversion is not always synchronous with the original social media action that created interest. It may turn into revenue or other conversion weeks or months down the line.

I can prove this to you and your HIPPO

Search – ROI of 14

Social – ROI of 0.3

Search activity mirrors media exposure

“tell me more”

It is now entirely normal for people to respond to offline media online – the web is the place consumers turn to learn more about things that capture their interest.

The first place they turn to is typically Google:

Awareness Research Decision Purchase

Role of organic search in buying process

Welcome to multi-channel conversion analysis (this chart from Google Analytics)

Classic example of social creating awareness, search aiding research, brand related search closing the sale and “winning” credit for the conversion

Social is creating conversion opportunities, “assisting” conversions via other channels, not just closing conversions on the “last click”

Prove social is assisting conversions

Creating opportunities for conversion

Closing the conversion

Social return on investment• More than just direct “last click” conversions• Assisted conversions, or opportunities created for

conversion, must also be factored in:

All conversions

Social assisted

conversions

Social last click

Last click = lowest possible, but simplest revenue value

Additional revenue value = where social drives visits to the site, but is the last click

What about those that don’t come directly to site from social, yet are still influenced by your activity? Harder to measure, but not impossible

Media led awareness – search based research

Social enhancing traditional PR

PR influence (TV)

PR influence (TV + social)

This search activity is being driven purely by PR. When these visitors finally convert there may be nothing to ever tie them directly to social/media. But the clues are still there in the search term data – listen to your market responding.

Discovery search

Non branded

See PR campaign themes

See influence of printed materials

Discover key customer questions

SEO issues – what is missing?

Brandsearch

Navigational & familiar users

Brand confusion & misspellings

See PR campaign themes

See influence of printed materials

Understand balance of brand & discovery

Anyone short of data?

Free tools like Klout look at impact

http://klout.com

• Service/weather announcements

• Customer queries

• Brand/people stories

• Apps & tools

• Quirky fun stuff

• Just the odd sales offer

So what are Southwest Air engaging people with?

Note they are using both hashtags and bit.ly urls to aid measurement

Power of the hashtag (for example)

Realtime analysis possible of this event #Tfest

Power of the event/topic specific hashtag:

Text analysis – http://Wordle.net

Blogs, Facebook, Flickr, Tripadvisor – it doesn’t take long to see themes

Social content analytics tools

Twitter Analytics

Video insights

Making sense of the viral

When something goes viral, its often most efficient to measure in the place – and the tool –where the drama is unfolding.

In this case, Flickr was the best place to understand what was happening right now whilst also participating in that conversation. Crude analysis, but I do know the activity was absolutely worth it in terms of the business goals that matter to me.

It’s all about who you know & who they know

& who they know....

Harness the network power

• Fact: I am more likely to trust a blogger I have never met on the topic of your destination, rather than you

- they’re in my network- they’re “like me”- they’re “authentic” & authoritative- other people “like me” seem to trust them- they have no marketing agenda (I assume)- I already know they exist, they’re on my comms radar

• This is not necessarily bad news for you

- IF it’s the right network, right blogger, right product, right message, right angle for them & you court them properly - they confer trust upon you & extend your reach into “their network”

Social network theory

Joe influences this clique

Vicky is connector

Both Joe & Vicky can

extend your reach extend

to Andrewhttp://www.touchgraph.com/TGFacebookBrowser.html

Bloggers, influencers & connectors know their value & everyone is after them – save your time & theirs by really doing your homework. Measure your effectiveness in engaging them

Who is missing? Are we talking to the right people? Are we talking to ourselves?

Who will reach a network we’re less influential in?

Some next steps

How do you measure what you don’t control?

1.Be alerted, know themes, use critical judgement- Google Alerts, BoardTracker, Bit.ly, SocialMention,

TweetDeck, Trackur, MeltWaterBuzz, Radian 6

How do you measure what you don’t control?

2. Prioritise for relevant action - know your participation parameters & targets in advance

Your time is a cost, you can’t participate in every conversation

Who really matters? Where do you plan to focus? What is in it for them – why should they engage with you? Under what conditions will you make unplanned interventions?

Is there evidence anywhere that your interventions & activities are striking the right note with the right people – be ready to act fast, either way

How do you measure what you don’t control?

3. Keep your eye on the ultimate goal

Pass the “so what” test Brand awareness, noise, likes, retweets are not necessarily the same as creating an opportunity for future conversion.

What metrics link specifically to current or future actions you want the audience to take?

Understand your critical performance indicators so you can act accordingly.

How are actual outcomes relating to expected ones?

Final thoughts

• So What? Useful metrics tie to real actions• There is no one size fits all magic metric or tool• Fixate on your questions & goals – the metrics will follow• Start listening, but be ready to act• Don’t ignore qualitative & search term data• Be aware social media may be opening not closing • “Last click” ROI calculations under value social

• Analysis in itself has only potential value – actual value comes when your actions impact revenue, costs or satisfaction

Avoid death by data!

Thank you!Merci

Vicky Brock:

@brockvicky

http://uk.linkedin.com/in/vickybrock

vicky@highlandbusinessresearch.com