“The official rules of social media measurement”

- By Matt Granfield and Some other Smarter People

“The official rules of social media measurement”

- By Matt Granfield and Some other Smarter People

This is a webernated version of the presentation I put together on measuring social media for The Social Media Club Sydney chapter on July 20, 2009. I’ve added some notes, messed around with it a bit and deleted some bits so no-one sues me. Enjoy

@mattgranfield

This is the agency I work for, I wanted to briefly introduce myself and explain what we do... We’re quite famous in Queensland for fruit campaigns, and helping IceBreak iced coffee out-sell Coke...

Social Media People

Advertising People

People in Suits without Ties

People in client service who wear short skirts

PR People

MeDigital Guys who always stand at The Back

Me = Creative/Digital Strategist

So I’m good with Ideas...

And not necessarily as good at crunching numbers

So I asked some of these...

How they created these...

Results

Happy American stock photo library client people who just happen to look like Malcolm Turnbull

Client service dude pretending he understands the results

Interns

This was the answer from the agency CEO

1. PR Value of coverage received = actual ad value x 3 – this is an old technique, I don’t like it and it’s actively discouraged by the PRIA.

2. Cost per person reached – This is good for companies who compare their ad spend directly with their PR spend.

3. Setting objectives and timeframes for each individual campaign. This is the most effective way as every company wants something different.– eg. “Coverage in ‘top 5’ key media +

speaking engagements at 2 conferences + promotions in 3 key cities”. This way we’re managing the clients expectations and we both have a definite goal in mind.

This was the answer from the head of PR

This was the answer from the head of search

I asked Cristian Staal, Art Director from Cummins Nitro on the multi-Cannes-Grands-Prix-winning best job in the world campaign how they measured its success...

• He said it was incredibly hard to get a figure because the government can only accept the lowest estimate of reach

• They got to $250,000,000 as the amount of free media generated based on airtime but it would have been more than that because they only pay to get stuff monitored for a set period of time and people are still talking about it

• Also measured hits to website• He met the head of CTV in Canada at Cannes who

told him that their station had shown 6 hours worth of footage of Queensland because of the campaign

• And if that was just Canada, imagine how much actually got shown around the world

I rang* my mate Seth Godin and asked him what he thought about the subject of measuring social media and he said:

“I’d rather be in front of 10 people who are the right people than 10,000 who aren’t...”

“Selling to people who actually want to hear from you is more effective than interrupting strangers who don't...”

*That’s a lie, I didn’t ring him, but I did interview him via email once for my blog, and he did actually say those things to someone else, but not to me, but it might as well have been me, so it’s still valid

“I do not regard advertising as entertainment or art form, but as a medium of information. When I write an advertisement, I don’t want you to tell me that you find it ‘creative.’ I want you to find it so interesting that you buy the product.”

- David Ogilvy

Based on those conversations, I distilled the Official Rules of Social Media Measurement

1. The CEO won’t get it at first, but that’s not an excuse to sit on your arse.

2. Create objectives for each campaign3. Reaching lots of people is good. Reaching

the right people is better.4. Awards get you recognition but sales make

the client happy.5. If you’re big in Canada, you’re doing

something right

How do you calculate reach and know you’re reaching the right people?

You need a social media monitoring tool...

Here’s one I prepared earlier...

Things to write down if you would like more info or a free trial:

www.dialogix.com.au matt@dialogix.com.au http://twitter.com/mattgranfield