how to measure the success of your social media campaigns

@hannah_bo_bannahannah.smith@distilled.net

How to Measure the Success of your Social Media Efforts

Hannah Smith - Distilled

@hannah_bo_bannahannah.smith@distilled.net

Hannah SmithDistilledhannah.smith@distilled.netwww..distilled.netwww.seo-chicks.com

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Many Leap Straight in...

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But let’s take a step back…

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What do you want your Social Media Campaign to do?

• Get people talking about you – Brand awareness / engagement / PR

• Shift consumer opinion– Reposition your brand

• Consumer research• Manage your reputation online• Customer Service

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Reactive vs Proactive Campaigns

Reactive Campaigns: • Manage your reputation online• Customer Service

Proactive Campaigns:• Get people talking about you • Shift consumer opinion• Consumer research

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Dell Hell

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Reactive Campaigns

• Think PR / Customer Service • Put processes in place to listen and respond.

People are probably already talking about you online ignorance might be bliss, but it could be bad for business.

http://socialmediatoday.com/sgehman/344400/4-toolstechniques-help-you-monitor-your-brand

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Measuring Reactive Campaigns

• What might a PR disaster cost you?– Might be better not to find out!

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Measuring Reactive Campaigns

• What is the ROI of customer service?– Hard to quantify

• Consider using Customer Service metrics instead– Time to resolution– Frequency of escalation– Is it quicker (and therefore cheaper) to resolve a

complaint via social media than traditional channels?

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Let’s get proactive…

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Proactive Campaigns

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Wait! What about Sales?

• Sales / Conversions are symptomatic of a good proactive social media campaign

• But you may struggle if you’re only ‘selling’ via social media

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Social Media is about

conversation…Not

broadcast.

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Why?

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Because you need the community to amplify your messages…

They decide whether or not to allow your message to spread.

You no longer have control – this is not about buying reach, it’s about earning it.

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Want to do a Proactive Campaign?

• Get people talking about you • Shift consumer opinion• Consumer research

You’ll need a content strategy…

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What Should you Measure?

Gauge your audience’s reaction to different types of content…

Do more of what’s worked well & look to either improve or remove the stuff that hasn’t worked.

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Good things to Measure

• Conversation• Amplification• Applause• Economic Value

http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/best-social-media-metrics-conversation-amplification-applause-economic-value/

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Conversation

Conversation Rate =

# of Audience Comments (or Replies) Per Post

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Amplification

• On Twitter:– Amplification = # of Retweets Per Tweet

• On Facebook, Google Plus:– Amplification = # of Shares Per Post

• On a blog, YouTube:– Amplification = # of Share Clicks Per Post (or

Video)

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Applause

• On Twitter:– Applause Rate = # of Favorite Clicks Per Post

• On Facebook:– Applause Rate = # of Likes Per Post

• On Google Plus:– Applause Rate = # of +1s Per Post

• On a Blog, YouTube:– Applause Rate = # of +1s and Likes Per Post (or

video)

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Remember…

• These metrics are often platform centric AND content centric– What works well on Twitter might not work on

Facebook• Figure out which content works best on each

platform

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Economic ValueThis is platform-centric - you’ll need to compare channels e.g. Twitter versus Facebook to see which are sending...

• Sales• Enquiries• Sign up to newsletters / offers• RSS subscribers• Take free trial• Download a coupon

When calculating ROI incorporate both initial and lifetime value.

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Multi-Channel FunnelsLast click attribution doesn’t tell the whole story…

http://www.distilled.net/blog/web-analytics/google-analytics-multi-channel-funnel-tips-from-my-searchfest-presentation/

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data you can

ignore…

We <3 Avinash

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Fans / Followers etcYou should still track followers / fans BUT…

“Companies over-value followership and under-value participation. Yes, you can go out and buy 1000 followers. But if they all ignore you from that point on, they’re worthless.”

Ian Lurie: www.portent.com @portent

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Visits

• Traffic is great but most sites are unable to monetise traffic alone

• By all means measure this – but it probably won’t be a core metric for you

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Key Takeaways

• Proactive– Measure via

• Conversations, Amplifications, Applause & Economic Value• Evaluate different types of content & the platforms

• Reactive– ROI is tricky here.

• Consider using Customer Service metrics e.g. time to resolution, frequency of escalation, cost of service etc.

@hannah_bo_bannahannah.smith@distilled.net

Thank you!

@hannah_bo_bannahannah.smith@distilled.net

Hannah SmithDistilledhannah.smith@distilled.netwww..distilled.netwww.seo-chicks.com

http://twitter.com/#!/hannah_bo_banna

@hannah_bo_bannahannah.smith@distilled.net

Useful Tools

• Facebook Insights– http://ads.ak.facebook.com/ads/creative/in

sights/page-insights-guide.pdf• Wildfire

– http://monitor.wildfireapp.com/• Simply Measured

– http://simplymeasured.com/

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Useful Tools

• Social Mention– http://www.socialmention.com/

• Topsy- http://topsy.com/

• Crowdbooster- http://crowdbooster.com/

@hannah_bo_bannahannah.smith@distilled.net

Further ReadingProactive• http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/best-social-media-metrics-conversation-a

mplification-applause-economic-value/• http://www.seomoz.org/blog/tracking-the-roi-of-social-media

Reactive• http://socialmediatoday.com/sgehman/344400/4-toolstechniques-help-yo

u-monitor-your-brand• http://www.salesforce.com/uk/socialsuccess/social-media/expert-intervie

w-brad-cleveland-social-customer-support.jsp

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Image credits• Leaping straight in - http://www.flickr.com/photos/billward/5756463308/sizes/z/in/photostream/• Social Media - http://www.flickr.com/photos/kexino/6336663225/sizes/z/in/photostream/• Proactive - http://www.flickr.com/photos/kwl/4435490471/sizes/z/in/photostream/• Cheerleaders - http://www.flickr.com/photos/kwl/4764667152/sizes/z/in/set-72157623544311963/