Because they measure what’s available, instead of what benefits their company.
For example, let’s say your small business launches a Twitter account this afternoon. How will you measure the success of that account? By measuring number of followers, of course! And if you want to get really spiffy, you could also track how many RTs you’re getting and your level of exposure!
Right? The problem with this approach is that we aren’t factoring in your businesses strategy and goals for using Twitter. What are you trying to accomplish? How will getting more followers and RTs help you achieve your goals?
When I measure the effectiveness of my own Twitter efforts, I look at two metrics:
1 – Referral traffic from Twitter to this blog
2 – Leads generated via people I have connected with on Twitter.
That’s it. Because my strategy is to use Twitter to increase my awareness among potential clients by sharing content that drives traffic back to this blog (referral traffic), and to engage in conversations and network with people so that they will hire me to consult/train for them (leads).
I was having a conversation recently with a new client about using Twitter, and they told me they were going to track the number of followers as their primary metric for success. They even had plotted out X% growth that they wanted to see happen over time. I told them it was fine to track number of followers, but follower growth needed to be a function of them achieving what should be their larger goals for Twitter. This particular client wanted to use Twitter as a way to boost awareness for themselves, and the products they offer. They were competing against 2 main competitors that had much higher levels of awareness.
So I suggested to them that we focus on using Twitter as a way to drive interest back to your blog and website. So we went from tracking just followers, to also looking at things like:
1 – Referral traffic from Twitter to the blog (and as part of the metrics associated with the blog, look at referral traffic from the blog to the website).
2 – Level of engagement on the blog.
3 – Number of links generated to the blog.
4 – Sales leads generated via Twitter.
5 – Downloads of white papers via a link shared on Twitter (also share same link on the blog and compare/contrast download rates)
Now sometimes, it can be hard to know for sure that a new lead or link was generated via a contact on Twitter (or another social site). That’s why it pays to ALREADY be tracking these metrics, then when you make a change (like adding a Twitter account), if one of the metrics you are already tracking suddenly increases, it’s a good bet that what you changed (adding a Twitter account) made the difference.
For example, let’s say that you launch a Twitter account, and in the 1st month you notice that hits to one specific product page on your website increased by 23%! To try to figure out why, you check your website’s analytics, and discover that most of the hits were generated by a referral from one blog post written about that particular product, that included a link to the product page. You do a bit more digging, and discover that most of the referral traffic for that one post, came from Twitter.
Now you at least have some idea of how Twitter is making an impact on your business. You should further check into this and try to determine exactly why that particular post did well (The topic? The writer? The structure of the post?), and also try to figure out why it was so popular on Twitter (In what context was the link shared? What day? What time? More than once?).
The bottom line is that effective social media measurement is all about figuring out exactly what YOUR goals are, then measuring metrics that tie back to those goals. We’ve all heard the saying ‘what gets measured gets manufactured’, and it couldn’t be more true when it comes to social media measurement. If all you want to measure is number of followers to decide if your Twitter efforts are working, then you WILL find a way to increase your number of followers.
Remember: Strategy first, then identify metrics to measure based on desired outcomes, not what’s easiest to measure.
PS: Have an existing social media strategy and you want to have it audited to make sure you are on the right track? I can do that, and I guarantee my work.
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Excellent suggestions! I have been working on getting clients to see this as well
Thank you Robyn! It can be difficult to accurately measure your social media efforts because of all the moving parts, but it will be a lot easier if we all give thought to creating an actual strategy (the horror!) and figure out what we want to happen as a result of our using social media.
Then we measure metrics that tie back to our desired outcomes. If all you need is more followers, go to Twellow.com and follow everyone that has ‘I always followback’ in their profile. Your number of followers will go through the roof, I just don’t want to be in the boss’ office when you have to explain why that isn’t translating into any measurable business benefit 😉
I can imagine that it’s extremely hard to explain metrics to your clients when discussing relationship building with Twitter or other platforms. The metric of relationship built with the client or customer should be the measure. In my opinion, if approaching social media strategy only as a measure of sales volume, you probably shouldn’t bother with using social media in your business.
Hey Tanya! Ultimately, any marketing effort that a business undertakes need to do at least one of two things:
1 – Increase revenue
2 – Lower costs
If we want to show our clients how engaging with customers via social media can help them, then we ultimately need to show how those interactions and conversations eventually feed into one of those two funnels. And I absolutely think it can and does for both, but if we can’t help our clients understand the relationship between connecting with customers via social media and generating additional sales (or lowering existing business costs), they probably won’t want to use social media.
I think you’re saying that instead of approaching social media as a sales-generating tool, that companies should look at it as a relationship-building tool, and that those relationships will lead to sales? I think that’s a good way to look at it for many businesses.
Exactly! The cost of maintaining a happy client is lower than the cost of obtaining a new one. There is benefit of the relationship that is built with within social media that transfers (especially for a small business) as an active, alive, and available business, to the clients mind. At least that’s how it has worked for us! Not to mention, fantastic SEO, amazing networking, the list goes on…
Tanya the same applies to customers and there are SO many businesses that don’t understand that! Thanks for getting me thinking today 😉
Great advice, Mack. So many believe that followers are the key, but not all followers fall within an organization’s target market segments.
Bingo! 50 people from your target market will usually trump 1,000 random people following you.
Fantastic advice, specific and on-point. This is exactly what differentiates professional PR and social media consultants from amateurs.
Thank you, the check’s in the mail 😉
Hi Mack, just wanted to say hi! Sorry I didn’t make it to blogchat….I was fuming about the bears losing to Tebow. I love your post, and it was perfect because I was looking in Google Analytics just earlier today still thinking how I wanted to approach it. I agree with your tips (bookmarked them!). Twitter can be powerful, it’s just in our hands, not a third party service! The strategy is what makes social media fun – achieving engagement – otherwise, I’d be bored with it already and/or groaning at manageflitter cleaning up twellow’s work! 🙂