Five Best Practices for Social Media Measurement - How to link social media metrics to business results

CONCLUSIONS Paper Five Best Practices for Social Media Measurement How to link social media metrics to business results Insights from the webinar, Less Talk + More Action = Better Results, in the Measure What Matters: Redefining Marketing Success in the Digital Age series, presented in association with the American Marketing Association and SAS Featuring: Katie Delahaye Paine, CEO of KDPaine & Partners John Bastone, Global Customer and Media Intelligence Manager at SAS Five Best Practices for Social Media Measurement If there’s anyone out there who still believes social media doesn’t warrant serious consideration, consider some basic facts: There are more than 750 million active users on Facebook, 140 million unique visitors to the site each month, 200 million registered Twitter users, and more than 100 million ■ If anyone still believes social media professionals on LinkedIn. is just an online playground for That’s just for starters. In addition to social networking sites, there are blogs, egocentric chatter, look at the role comments on traditional media and e-commerce websites, review sites such that Facebook, Twitter and YouTube as ConsumerSearch and Epinion, content-sharing sites such as YouTube and have played in mobilizing protests Flickr, and collaborative projects such as Wikipedia. in the Arab revolutions of late. The ability to connect and communicate Nearly half of Americans now get their news from the Web. One in five reads blogs. More than 80 percent of Americans use social media in some fashion over new media has even reshaped each month. the dynamics of international rebellion, so just think what it might Some of those people just might be talking about your brand – and your do for your business. competition. Some may be ambassadors and advocates, or they may just as easily be detractors and malcontents – but all their voices are in the mix, shaping customers’ buying decisions. Who would want to ignore it? However, in this age of accountability, can you be sure that investments in social media are worth it? Can you prove the bottom-line value of this ephemeral new media? ■ “Social media is the preferred contact channel for many people these days. A lot of outbound marketing and sales effort happens Social Media: Driving Profits or Just Popularity? through Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. More than half of my “Accountability has never been more important in marketing,” said John Bastone, clients never respond to an email Global Customer and Media Intelligence Manager at SAS. “It isn’t just about increasing but will respond immediately to a awareness anymore; it’s about what we are doing to drive profitable revenue growth. In my role at SAS, I speak to a lot of customers and at a lot of conferences about Facebook comment, message or the benefits of data-driven insights across a wide spectrum of technologies, such as tweet. Call a client by phone, and it campaign management, search engine optimization or Web analytics. Nothing has might take three days for a return generated more buzz – or brought more scrutiny – than the topic of social media, call, but that same client might specifically how to get more value out of that channel.” respond immediately on Twitter.” Organizations often do not reap the value they should from social media, for Katie Delahaye Paine, CEO of KDPaine & Partners several reasons: • It is not being used very effectively. In an informal webcast poll, nearly 60 percent of audience members said their organizations are ineffective in their use of social media. Another third think they’re getting there. Only one in 10 claimed their organizations were doing a good job of it. 1 Five Best Practices for Social Media Measurement Those figures align with the results of a recent survey of more 2,100 senior marketers, conducted by SAS with Harvard Business Review Analytic Services (The New Conversation: Taking Social Media from Talk to Action, October 2010). The study found that the use of social media was stronger in certain segments – such as retail, organizations with more than 10,000 employees, and the computer services and professional services sectors. • Risks are magnified on social media. Bad practices in traditional media marketing are just as bad on social media – except the mistakes can reach more people faster and create more damage. Consider Kenneth Cole’s misstep in a widely derided tweet about unrest in Egypt. Or Edelman and Wal-Mart’s gaffes in creating fake blogs. Or the pervasive habit among marketers to use social media for screaming without listening. • Social media has been mostly about intangible effects. When asked to name the primary benefits social media has brought to their organizations, most respondents in the study pointed to increased awareness, website traffic and favorable perceptions of the organization. Awareness. Hits. Happy thoughts. That’s all fine and well. It’s gratifying if consumers “like” you. But do they buy? Do they recommend? Does all this awareness, website traffic and goodwill translate into dollars and profits? For most organizations, the answer is, “Hmm, we don’t really know.” In a webcast poll, 70 percent of respondents said their organizations did a poor job linking social media efforts to profits. When asked the most pressing challenges they face or anticipate facing with social media, shortfalls in this area topped the multiple-choice list: • 41 percent — Understanding the potential of social media to make a difference in the business. • 40 percent — Measuring the effectiveness of social media activities. • 31 percent — Linking social media activities to an impact on company financials and/or ROI. No surprises there, said Bastone. “Organizations realize the benefits of social media as it relates to awareness, but now the question is how to link this to tangible value in the company in a way that starts to justify the investment.” Becoming Effective with Social Media: Three Areas of Focus To evolve from “ineffective” to “effective” in social media requires organizations to focus on three areas, said Bastone: listening to the conversations that are out there, processing the structured and unstructured (text) data available from social media channels – and then doing something about it. 2 Five Best Practices for Social Media Measurement 1. Listen Organizations need to grow a bigger set of ears, said Bastone, borrowing the phrase from colleague and social media guru Chris Brogan. “If you want to find out what ■ “Being in the public domain, social customers think about you, there’s a ton of data out there on message boards, review media conversations represent a sites and discussion forums. You need to become more aware of these alternate resource-rich source of customer sources and pull them into your monitoring efforts. At the same time, you need to be information – as well as a good able to filter out the irrelevant content in a very standard, repeatable way.” source of competitive information.” Use social media scanning tools to find out what people are saying. Listen for public John Bastone, Global Customer and Media Intelligence relations opportunities, marketing opportunities and customer service needs. Track Manager at SAS the sentiments in conversations. Align all of this to internal metrics.