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10 ways to measure social media success
added by Maria Sipka on Mar 11, 2009
There’s so much talk about social media that it is easy for people to become cynical, perhaps losing track of the fact that it can have a positive impact on your business.
So how can you determine whether a social media strategy is proving beneficial to your business? How do you know that it is working out for you? And is now really the best time to find out?
Author: Chris Lake
Source: Econsultancy
Published on: Wed, 11/03/2009 - 17:37
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timing is everything
The best advice I ever heard is related to having experience on social networking - social media sites, just try it on yourself before you start to charge for it.
And this is good question also - how will you know you succeeded, what success looks like?
As for business websites and company profiles, its all about number of followers, clicks, and conversions.
And there are much more in intangible assets - recognition (which leads to increased sales long term - people tend to buy from companies that they already know something about ), trust (created trough 2 way communication via Twitter and Facebook), relevance (getting a feedback on front line and doing something about it). Assuming that employees are involved in creating company profiles and storytelling and assuming they are brand ambassadors, yes, this can work.
The only possible trouble in whole thing is if your employees get addicted too much to social media :) But a bit of prioritizing usually works ;)
As for best time to start with - why not now? I.e. Facebook has app 175,000,000 active users.
Since Twitter refused acquisition from Facebook in January, it might mean that we can expect some significant acquisition and merging in the future.
So better start now, when its not too complicated.
Time v's Results
I love your comment! Awesome!
"The only possible trouble in whole thing is if your employees get addicted too much to social media :)"
Time absolutely flies when you get hooked into twittering, facebooking, youtubing and everything else that's out there.
It's important to set time limits so these activities don't encroach on other important tasks and responsibilities.
A few of our team are addicted to our community - especially in it's early days that they're often up late at night welcoming new members and posting interesting resources. This deep level of care factor eventually pays off when other champions or evangelists join and contribute their bit.
Timing is everything
Great post.
Timing is everything and spending the time to create the image that you want... personal or company.
When you go out into the community you see the level of members,style of communication and frequency of content being refreshed.
You get a feel for the growth rate and how the members integrate their other sites. I love the way you put down the tangible assets....the categories are good ones.
Recognition leads to trust and building a following.
Trust is built by being real.
Relevance by the way one communicates and shares with others?
How do you see it?
Late Night Alumni
"This deep level of care factor eventually pays off when other champions or evangelists join and contribute their bit."
I do hope its true ;)
Limitations for running any social media account for business are a must, definitely.
And, yep there is a difference between being "addicted to social media" and "too addicted to social media" :)
Seems its too easy for twitter and facebook to take control over ones life. Other media like Linked In, YouTube and else are not so "infectious" fortunately.
Thanks for support with this late night stuff! I was thinking I am the only one. Glad to know I am on right place ;)
Late Night
There is a difference between metrics of efficiency and effectiveness.
I guess the question is what kinds of results you expect. Generally I find that I can get grants from European Union or regional government funded, and so can the academics and industrialists who are well networked, because showing network is almost always a requirement for those grants. Similarly, getting a "yes" on a big deal from a major corporate depends a lot on having a lot of people who know you and speak well of you. So time spent networking, contributing to other people's blogs etc is not wasted - provided you measure the right thing you can see the more effective nature of networked people.
Personally I find it quite easy to stay away from my social media during the day. Anything important - a direct message or a new connection - will be notified to my e-mail. Its a background task to keep in touch with a set of folk who I won't normally run into during the day. That is why it happens late at night - or very early in the morning. When there isn't the constant reaction and flow of e-mail and getting tasks sorted out within our scattered team to worry about.
Matt