The New Social Media Metrics

Guest Contributor: Nancy Garberson, CEO, Marketing and Communication Strategies, Inc. 

Metrics have been used in business to measure ROI for…well, practically forever. Social media has now necessitated a new framework for measuring efficacy and success in online social interactions. Basic categories include activities, such as “hits” or visits, contributions and re-posts or referrals; sales metrics, including qualified and unqualified leads, lead conversions and revenue per customer; even product development and HR functions can be measured through social media metrics.

The following is a pretty comprehensive list of some social media metrics for business, put together by “The Social Organization”*:

Activity Metrics

Pageviews

Unique visitors
Members
Posts (ideas/threads)
Number of groups (networks/forums)
Comments & Trackbacks
Tags/Ratings/Rankings
Time spent on site
Contributors
Active contributors
Word count
Referrals
Completed profiles
Connections (between members)
Ratios: Member to contributor; Posts to comments; Completed profiles to posts
Periods: By day, week, month, year
Frequency: of visits, posts, comments


Survey Metrics
Satisfaction
Affinity
Quality and speed of issue resolution
Referral likelihood
Relevance of content, connections


ROI Measurements
Marketing/Sales
Cost per number of engaged prospects (community vs. other initiatives)
Number of leads/period
Number of qualified leads/period
Ratio of qualified to non-qualified leads
Cost of lead
Time to qualified lead
Lead conversion
Number of pre-sales reference calls (to other customers)
Average new revenue per customer
Lifetime value of customers
Customer Support
Customer satisfaction
Number of initiated support tickets per customer per period
Support cost per customer in community

Reference: *http://www.thesocialorganization.com/social-media-metrics.html

Keep in mind that it doesn’t make sense to try to measure everything. Goals and objectives must always come first and must always be clear and top of mind. Metrics are useful as measurement, but they must reflect your goals and objectives. A select few metrics that tell your social media story are most cost effective and ultimately useful.

How do you align social media metrics with your business goals? To participate in this featured discussion, visit the Targeted Marketing Best Practices group on LinkedIn.

About Nancy
Nancy Garberson is CEO of Marketing and Communications Strategies, Inc. (MCS) and has over 30 years of marketing experience. She completed her BA in Journalism at the University of Iowa in 1983 and is scheduled to complete her Master's of Organizational Leadership degree at St. Ambrose University in 2011. MCS is a 22-year old marketing, advertising, and public relations firm with a global reach.