Social Media Measurement

What kind of things should one measure? Here are some common aspects that are measured during a social media campaign evaluation:

1. Audience

The size of your audience is not going to be an ultimate measure of success, but you will need a sufficient audience in order to have any success online. Quality matters more than quantity. It is easy to attract an online audience but this makes it easy to find yourself spending critical time and money on the wrong audience. You may even develop a community that reacts negatively to your activity. Make sure you know your target customers in detail so that you can identify, target and measure the audience that matters. For example, if you operate physical stores, use your metrics to make sure you attract an audience that lives within range. Do not fall into the trap of simply trying to gain a large audience quickly or for its own sake.

2. Traffic

You will need to measure traffic in the right places and in the right way in order to see what activity performs well, when it works best and so on. You might measure traffic to your website, call traffic or even store traffic. Look at mitigating factors alongside your metrics, such as the time of day, weather, competitor activity or economic context, so that you can measure the real impact of your social activity.

3. Data

Ask people to complete surveys, fill in email sign ups or other activities you can measure to indicate success.

4. Sales

If you are selling, whether online or offline, make sure you know your numbers in detail so that you can measure where your sales are coming from and what activity, social or otherwise, has an impact. Take any relevant contextual factors into account, such as economic trends, emerging or declining fashions or trends, the weather or the day of the week.

5. Sentiment

Whilst you can never have too much positive sentiment, measuring how people talk about you online is absolutely invaluable, whether good or bad. Sentiment will give you some of the most insightful and rewarding feedback available.

To read more about how to effectively measure performance, as well as other helpful information about social media, download the DMA Social media guide.

Compiled from contributions by the members of the DMA Social Media Council.

Malcolm Chen - DMA Social Media Council Member

@malcolmkchen

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