How Do I measure social Media? What K.P.I's Do I USE? What metrics?

2. HOW DO I MEASURE SOCIAL MEDIA?
WHAT KPIS DO I USE?
WHAT METRICS?
We get asked this a lot and the following is top-line overview of how we would answer. For a client or in a presentation we would go into
more depth and texture. We also give this more context and site examples. We are happy to do the same for you, if you’d like,
feel free to e-mail us with specific questions. (info@thetreesandtheforests.com.au)

3. MEASURING SOCIAL MEDIA
Measuring social media and defining KPIs and metric begins with purpose: the question is always:
‘why are we measuring this?’
The answer depends on what you are setting out to achieve with a given campaign, promotion or activity; is it acquisition,
lead generation, awareness, brand, loyalty or something else?
KPIs are set with regard to your specific objectives, so understanding what you are setting out to achieve and why (your
purpose in social media) will guide your thinking.
Some KPIs are delivered in short spans, some will naturally take longer. So expectations and KPIs should also be set against
the right time frame.
We tend to measure KPIs against 5 dimensions…

4. THE DIMENSIONS:
1. Reach
How many people we initially connect with.
2. Propagation
How many ne people your initial contacts connect you with. Think of this is as the ‘viral’ dimension, your digital ‘word of mouth’.
3. Engagement
How people interact with what you do, the depth texture and dimension of their interaction.
4. Quality
The quality of those connections, are they who you are after? Are they in your target market?
5. Value
The cost of acquisition or contact and its long or short term value. This is interesting because, for example, if we’re building a database or Facebook
‘fan base’ for a brand, the true value of this may be realised over time. The KPI can be the value of the ‘asset’ that’s produced - an asset utilised in
future campaigns.

5. THE REPORTING
-How you report and what you report is contingent upon the nature of the exercise and your objectives.
-To create your reporting you look at the different metrics and select the most appropriate for the job.
-For social media, the metrics are not always measured in the digital space.

6. THE METRICS - DIGITAL
Register and response rates / by channel / CTR / post click activity Ratings
Bookmarks (onsite, offsite) Registered users (new / total / active / dormant / churn)
Comments Report spam / abuse
Downloads Reviews
Email subscriptions Satisfaction (if delivering a service or answering customer queries
Favorites (add an item to favorites) through social media)
Feedback (via the site) Social media sharing / participation (activity on key social media
Followers (follow something / someone) sites, e.g. Facebook, Twitter)
Forward to a friend Tagging (user-generated metadata)
Groups (create / join / total number of groups / group activity) Testimonials
Install widget (on a blog page, Facebook, etc) Time spent on key pages
Invite / refer (a friend) Time spent on site (by source / by entry page)
Love / Like / Fan Time spent in-play (for games)
Messaging (onsite) Challenge friend (for games)
Personalisation (pages, display, theme) Entries (for a competition)
Posts Total contributors (and % active contributors)
Profile (e.g. update avatar, bio, links, email, customisation, etc) Uploads (articles, links, images, videos)
Print page Views (videos, ads, rich images)
Widgets (number of new widgets users / embedded widgets)

7. THE METRICS - DIGITAL: 3 CONSIDERATIONS
1. Search:
You can also look at impact on natural or organic search rankings. Did your social media activity increase them?
2. Sentiment:
Social media ‘listening’ can give you an idea of the positive or negative sentiment created by your digital (or off-line)
activity. I’ll often advocate a social media listening exercise as it can deliver useful insights around the competitive market
space and the zeitgeist.
3. Click stream:
What you want consumers to do next, or where you want them to go, may be important, if so, measure the click stream.

8. THE METRICS - INSIGHTS
Insights, intelligence and understanding:
In the process of running or executing a campaign in social media consumer or market Insights, intelligence and
understanding can be found - which can be of enormous significance. I would, if appropriate, place a value against these.
While seldom a formal KPI, my inclination is to consider this. Social media listening can be a valuable tool.

9. LISTEN
We have mentioned social media listening. We’ll mention it again.
This can be the most valuable thing you can do, for many reasons. Many brands use social media to have a ‘conversation’
with the market. Listening tells you if the conversation you want to have is one that the consumer wants to have. Often it’s
not. And this is when social media fails.
Listening enables you to understand the natural conversation and find your place in it. Use it to measure your campaign,
but also to plan the next.

10. THIS IS US
There’s a lot we can do with Measuring Social Media and Social Media Strategies. Every
client is different, so we don’t work to a ‘template’ we work with you collaboratively to
define a strategic framework that delivers the results you need.
What we deliver is a straightforward, practical actionable document.
Strategies should be ‘working’ documents, they answer problems, they deliver results
that can be measured – and this is what we aim to deliver.
If you’d like to find out more about us, our team and what we can do, please call
Kresant Mahilall on 0410 502 829.
Or, if you’re specifically interested in the social and search implications of social media
strategy, you can contact Ullash Tiwari on 0433 785 846. or email
ullash@thetreesandtheforests.com.au