New Metrics: Some Tools for Plotting a Social Media Strategy

Last week, the BBC published a report that online advertising in the U.K will eclipse traditional advertising spending this year.  This week, NPR ran a long story about the decline of Madison Avenue and the big international advertising firms that continue to scale back because traditional advertising revenues are shrinking rapidly.  Considering that online advertising is only about 10 years old and still very much in its infancy, it's pretty astounding news. 

I suspect there will be more news coverage to come on the continuing shift in advertising dollars and corporate participation from traditional media channels to "new" online media channels.  If you're paying any attention to the racing advance of technology, I doubt you'll be too surprised that online marketing is garnering more and more dollars at the expense of television, print, and radio.  Why the shift?  In the last few years, online advertising has become significantly more sophisticated, and online marketing platforms offer some incredibly useful and informative systems for measuring messaging efficacy on digital internet channels.  Coupled with the explosive growth of Internet usage, it's kind of a no brainer. 

This wasn't always the case.  In the early days of online advertising, there was little consensus, in fact, about what reasonable rates of returns-and how they might be measured-looked like for online ad campaigns.  Pioneering companies, including Google with their AdWords and AdSense programs, DoubleClick and others helped standardize and institute reasonable metric systems for understanding success or failure in online advertising. 

Enter social media.  Just as organizations debated the merits and effectiveness of online advertising during those early years, the primary topic of conversation about social media today is: "What can we expect to achieve through social media participation?"   

It's a great question.  Social media measurements aren't as straightforward as those for online advertising, but new standards of engagement and sentiment-shifting-the favorable movement of popular opinion about an issue, brand, etc.-are starting to emerge.   

Because social media revolves around an ongoing, two-way conversation, we need to think about how the conversation impacts our organization.  Here are three useful measurements to help you understand your position and reputation in the social media world. 

1.  Share of Voice 

People use social media to communicate.  They talk about everything from the mundane details of their daily routines to their opinions on critical local, national, and international issues.  It's a big world, and there's plenty to talk about.  Are people using social media to talk about you and your organization?  If so, how much conversation is occurring?  At Redirect, we spend a lot of time analyzing share of voice for our clients.  Participation in social media eclipses all other types of online participation growth, so if no one is talking about you in social media, you're being ignored by the fastest growing segment of the web.  

 2.  Tone of Voice/Sentiment Analysis 

If people are using social media to talk about your organization, what are they saying about it?  Are the conversations positive or critical?  Are there openings in the dialogue that might invite your participation?  This is a big one, folks.  Because even if the sentiment of the conversation is negative-which, believe me, is much better than if there is no conversation at all-understanding where you are will give you a basis from which to move forward.  I talk to a lot of organizations, and I am constantly reminding really smart people that there's no way to improve a person's perception of you if you don't know what it is at the outset.  

 3.  Trends Over Time

After establishing the general sentiment of social media conversations about your organization, it's then possible to track any changes in sentiment over some period of time.   In that manner, you can begin to understand how your social media participation may affect a change-hopefully for the better-in how people think about you.  After all, if we're going to engage in social media, we should understand what, if any, result our part in the conversation is having.  

These tools, three new metrics to measure the conversation, can be valuable in establishing your social media beachhead.  A good analysis of the data can help you prepare for effective online social engagement.  However, how you engage in social media can dramatically affect all three indicators.  

Next week, in Part Two, we'll discuss the six levels of engagement in social media, and the first steps to earning an authentic, positive reputation online.  

Until then, what are people saying about you?

Brian Seethaler is hopelessly devoted to outdoor pursuits, Helvetica, and the Oxford Comma.  He is also the managing director at Redirect Community, director of sponsorship for the Social Media Club of Salt Lake City, and an adjunct instructor at the University of Utah's Division of Continuing Education where he teaches social networking.  Catch him online at twitter.com/seethaler or facebook.com/seethaler.