STRATEGIC SOCIAL MEDIA
MEASUREMENT
Jake Aull, Social Media Instructor http://jakeaull.wordpress.com
Georgia State University Robinson College of Business

Social Media in the Customer Purchase Cycle
 The traditional marketing funnel:
eyeballs>>awareness>>consideration>>
preference>>action>>loyalty>>buyers
 Clickstream and customer journey
 “Blogging” is in the lost center of the funnel
(consideration>>preference>>action)

Chris Brogan’s Metrics
 Chris Brogan (co-author of Trust Agents) blogs about
social media and metrics.
 Here is part of Chris’s recommended list of high-level
social media metrics:
 % of online conversation (versus competitor).
 % of coverage improvement.
 # of new subscribers/attendees/buyers via tracking links.
 # of new threads, comments, conversations for engagements.
 # of (audience) actions taken (for example on blog posts).

Strategic Social Media Measurement Planning
 Objectives are explored and married upfront in the
planning process for social media, measurement and
search
 Define measureable KPIs and analytics plan upfront
with social media plan
 Social media objectives drive KPIs and tactical plan
 Social media objectives drive keywords and search
integration and plan

From my blog…
 Here is my plan for upfront web exploratory research and monitoring identification:
 Situation - e.g., online brand buzz has increased in recent months
 Problem - e.g., brand is unaware of its online reputation
 Measurement objectives - e.g., identify quantity and ratio of existing online "brand fanatics" vs. haters
 Measurement questions - e.g., what tags (such as "love this brand") and channels best fit our problem
and objectives?
 Hypothesis - e.g., the brand has more social media promoters than detractors
 Action Standard - e.g., a Net Promoter Score over 30% in Twitter
 Measurement method & tool - e.g., NPS, Twitter and SAS
 For reference and additional reading, see my blog at http://jakeaull.wordpress.com and
Exploring Marketing Research by William G. Zikmund and Barry J. Babin.

The Measurement Plan
 Campaign Overview & Objectives
 Communications Calendar Overview & Consumer Journey
 Tracking mechanisms like Webtrends tags, Google Analytics,
Omniture Tags, social media monitoring, Twitter hashtags, etc
 Diagnostic Metrics - example: CTR, Interaction Rate, Mentions
 Success Metrics - example: ROAS, ROI, Conversion Rate
 Dashboard - showing the key metrics help to understand the
performance of the campaign.
 Reporting Frequencies
- Inspired in part by Amit Prakash web measurement approach http://measuringemarketing.blogspot.com

Marketing Funnels

Fred Reischheld’s Net Promoter Score
 Modeled on this question: “How likely is it that you would recommend
(brand X) to a friend?”
 0-6 = Not Likely at All (Detractors)
 7-8 = Neutral (Passive)
 9-10 = Extremely Likely (Promoters)
 Net Promoter Score = %Promoters - %Detractors
 Applied without a survey, for example promoters could be online
recommenders, and detractors as brand “haters” or negative
reviewers
 Can be a measure of brand loyalty, WOM effect or projection of
brand awareness
 SAS now measures sentiment such as promoters and detractors

Measuring Increase in Search Effects (brand awareness)
 Increase in channels/pages appearing in major
keyword search results (SEO Book Tools)
 Measure increases in search rankings for website
concurrent with increases in social content output (SEO
Book Tools and Google Alerts)
 Increase of brand name search results and mentions in
social “search engines” such as Digg, StumbleUpon,
Reddit or Del.icio.us (Synthesto Unity)
 Increase in share-of-voice of important keywords in
search engines, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn
(HootSuite social keyword monitoring)

Measuring Sales Improvement
 Reduction of sales cycle concurrent with increase in social media
access during customer journey to purchase (or increases of social
content output) (HubSpot and Salesforce.com)
 Reduction of sales cycle, or increase in sales, concurrent with
increases in brand and customer social engagements (conversations;
HubSpot, Synthesto Unity)
 Reduction of sales-lead research/nurturing time (due to social
profiling for leads; HubSpot with Salesforce.com)
 Web lead-conversion improvement concurrent with increase in
customer social media hits or engagements
 Reduced cost-to-acquire customer concurrent with social media
replacing traditional promotions channels (based on 30% first touch,
30% last touch, 40% divided between middle nurturing and social
media channels; Argyle Social)

Measuring Brand Loyalty
 Increase in brand (positive) social mentions per
customer (Synthesto Unity)
 Increase in brand ReTweets and post sharing
(HootSuite, HubSpot)
 Increase in customer brand recommendations and
positive reviews (Synthesto Unity)
 Increase in joins and chatter in retention/rewards
community (channel-specific or Google Analytics)
 Increase in up-sales (HubSpot with Salesforce.com)

Measuring Cost Reductions toward ROI
 Social media pages/posts as touch points replacing
previous paid promotions models (cost savings of
channel change)
 Customer support forums reducing support staff
hours consumption (reduced disparate phone time)
 Crowd-sourcing product development (features
ideas and demand), reducing R&D dept costs

Crowd-sourcing/R&D/Product Support

Social Media Objectives & Tools, cont’d
Thought-leadership projection Brand Awareness & Fan Promoters
(a content strategy for goals of brand attribution or to influence sales)
For more on these, see my blog post: http://jakeaull.wordpress.com/2011/04/25/four-usable-social-media-objectives-kpis/

Social Tools for Measurement
 Synthesio Unity
 Online reputation management (across all social channels)
 Crisis manament
 Influencer identification
 Campaign measurement
 HubSpot
 Closed-loop marketing measurement (all customer digital touch points to
Salesforce.com conversion)
 Social profiling of leads
 Brand/keyword monitoring
 Omniture
 Multi-touch metrics
 Argyle Social
 Channel ROI attribution for multi-touch campaigns

Social Tools for Measurement
 HootSuite
 Twitter mentions and HashTag/keyword monitoring
 ReTweets
 Klout score
 LinkedIn stats and Facebook insights
 ExactTarget CoTweet
 Campaign email metrics; compared to:
 Twitter and Facebook
 SEO Book Tools
 Website competition
 Keyword competition
 PPC competition
 SEO rankings
 Google tools
 Brand monitoring (Google Alerts)
 PageViews (Google Analytics)
 Duration of visit
 Clicks
 Referrals
 Directs (bookmarks or type-ins, but also mobile app click-thrus)
 Wordpress stats, Bit.ly stats, etc.

SAS Perspectives
So, what exactly is engagement? Katie Paine (CEO KDPaine & Partners)
classifies information consumers into five levels of engagement, based on how
they interact with online channels.
• At the most passive level are the Searchers. They scan online resources to find specific
information and largely ignore social media. A count of unique visitors captures your best
view of this silent group.
• Next are the Lurkers, who listen in on the conversation but don’t participate. These users can
be tracked as repeat visitors above a certain frequency, say, more than three or five visits per
month.
• Somewhat more engaged are the Casuals, who participate lightly in social media. They
might be identified through metrics such as percentages of visitors who post comments or who
become your friend on Facebook or your follower on Twitter.
• Higher up the value chain are the Actives, who retweet to others, regularly participate in
interactive threads and post comments frequently.
• Most organizations would love to cultivate the strong voice of Defenders, those who serve as
your most influential ambassadors – advocating, recommending and defending the brand.
From SAS white paper Social Media Metrics: Listening, Understanding and Predicting the Impacts of Social Media on Your Business

SAS Perspectives
Paine presented her battle-tested seven steps to an effective social media measurement system:
1. Define the “R,” the expected results. As with traditional media, the goal determines the metrics. According to Paine, social
media goals fall into three primary categories:
• Marketing – building awareness, generating leads and sales.
• Communications – engaging with people in support of a civic or safety mission.
• Perception – improving the organization’s relationships, reputation or positioning.
2. Define the “I” – what’s the investment? Social media is not free. It costs about $10,000 to run a contest on FaceBook, for
example. And you have to pay people to read and respond to social media sites. The payback can be tremendous, but you
do have to know what and where to invest, to expect to show credible ROI.
3. Understand your audiences and what motivates them. This knowledge determines which channels to focus on, what tone of
voice to adopt, and what types of responses, offers and online content to provide.
4. Define the metrics (what you want to become). Click-throughs, unique visitors, repeat visitors, number of friends, followers,
comments, repeat comments, tweets and retweets … metrics will vary by goal, audience and vertical market.
• If your goal is marketing-oriented, your metrics could include percent that are hearing, percent that are believing (as determined
by surveys) and percent that are acting.
• If the goal is awareness, you could assess the degree to which the messages are not just communicated, but passed along and
picked up on other websites, feeds, threads and blogs.
• If the goal is improving reputation and relationships, your metrics could revolve around relationship scores (based on analysis of
specific phrases that determine the state of relationships), recommendations, positioning and engagement.
From SAS white paper Social Media Metrics: Listening, Understanding and Predicting the Impacts of Social Media on Your Business

SAS Perspectives
Track the Elusive Sentiment
Customers want to take what they are hearing and learning from online conversations,
and put some action to it, said Chaves. “The key lies in being precise in extracting and
tagging sentiment.”
Text analytic tools can categorize online content, uncover linked concepts, and reveal
the sentiment in a conversation as “positive,” “negative” or “neutral,” based on the
words people use. The technology gets down to very specific elements and can
separate positive and negative remarks within a single comment.
“A mixed-polarity phrase, such as ‘hotel in great location but bathroom was smelly’
should not be tagged as ‘neutral,’ if you want it to be actionable,” said Chaves. “Be
specific; ‘bathroom was smelly’ is something someone can own and improve upon.”
You can classify and categorize these sentiments, look at trends over time, and see
significant differences in the way people speak either positively or negatively about
you. Furthermore, you can compare sentiment about your brand to your competitors.
From SAS white paper Social Media Metrics: Listening, Understanding and Predicting the Impacts of Social Media on Your Business

SAS Sentiment Tracking

Social Media Measurement Q&A
1. Why do we need to measure (analytics) social media?
Social Media marketing only works when driven by real marketing objectives. These must be measurable; else how to know when the
objectives have succeeded?
2. How?
Again, KPIs should be determined upfront to fit the objectives. For example, brand keyword monitoring in Twitter or HootSuite can
measure brand awareness in that channel. I like Fred Reichheld's Net Promoter Score as a metric for brand loyalty and brand
reputation, where shares/retweets could represent promoters. If your objective is thought leadership brand reputation, your Klout Score
is a good measure.
3. Fb, twitter (ie: How do you calculate social media impressions on Facebook and Twitter? Is there a formula you use to be
demonstrate reach?)
Reach is a traditional broadcast advertising metric used to compensate for the lack of direct contact or known viewer action. Such
shortcomings don't exist in social media, so why shortchange its metrics? Better social media KPIs measure audience engagement, such
as likes, click-thrus, shares, ratings, Diggs and bookmarks.
At its most basic level, if you broadcast posts in Facbook and Twitter, your fans and followers (plus their shares and retweets, if you like)
represent reach (keeping in mind that only about an estimated 20% of all Facebook posts are seen due to noise and traffic, per a
recent stat I heard in a seminar). Even more effective, DMs in these channels have a much higher likelihood of being seen by fans/
followers.
CTR continues to be a good, free and easy web and social media metric, as URL shorteners such as bit.ly and ow.ly (via HootSuite)
provide their own stats for all their clicked-through shortened URLs.

Q&A, conclusion
4. My question would be which are the most popular social media analytic tools and how are they differentiated? Also
which sources are the best ones in order to attract professionals at a senior marketing level that can use those tools?
There are all types of metrics and methods to measure social media. All social channels should offer some type of measurement; the
higher-priced pro versions offering more (e.g., HootSuite and Facebook Insights). If you care to do the aggregation yourself, you can
obtain plenty of free data (e.g., Google Analytics and other tools, URL shorterners, WordPress Stats).
The bigger your budget, you can pay for more comprehensive and tailored metrics reports; for "closed loop marketing" as HubSpot
likes to call it (which offers comprehensive social media metrics integrated with Salesforce.com). Paid-model social media dashboards
such as TweetDeck or CoTweet offer many measurement reports options. Higher end services such as Omniture offer sophisticated social
media reporting related to all channels of the marketing mix.
5. What is a good measure of ROI for Twitter & Facebook (other than likes & followers)?
If sales ROI is your primary social media marketing objective, then compose your posts with CTAs for recipients to click-through to
purchase (similar to PPC/CPA ads). Then measure your purchases from social media click-thrus via aforementioned tools and methods.
6. What are the challenges of measuring sm?
- Aggregating to a common base
- Gauging role in the total integrated marketing mix
- Realizing the valuable differentiation between consumer-shared brand content versus original company brand postings.
7. ROI challenges…
If sales ROI is your primary objective, you must structure your campaign and messaging to drive sales, measurably with aforementioned
tools and methods.
Thank you. For more please see my blog at http://jakeaull.wordpress.com