Measuring Success

Measuring Success

As a results-driven marketer, you'll need to take these steps as part of your social
media program:
Establish priorities and quantifiable goals
Choose tracking tools
Report your numbers, growth, progress against plan, and comparison
with rivals
Businesses and organizations can no longer expect to kick the tires on social
media without opening their wallets. Unpaid interns will not be enough to make
an impact. Tacking on social media as a fraction of someone’s job description is
little better.
You’ll need to staff up, with talented in-house people and perhaps with outside
agency help. Plus, you’ll need to invest real dollars in the technology platforms,
advertising support, and promotions that make the best social media programs
sing.
With real social media programs now costing real money, the folks in the green
eyeshades will inevitably ask the question:
What is the goal, and what is the return on investment?
As a person who has spent most of my career in direct marketing, I’m the first to
admit that compared with online ad campaigns, the ROI of social media is still a
bit nebulous. It’s difficult to track or precisely quantify

I also firmly believe that social media and online networking are still in their
infancy and that their relationship to marketing and business is changing fast. So
the real ROI to focus on is the risk of ignoring.
Any business or organization must commit to a high-profile presence on the
major social networks or be overshadowed by competitors who are quicker and
more aggressive.
But that doesn’t mean you should rush onto Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest,
Google+, YouTube and the like without a plan. You need a strategy, clear and
measurable goals for success, and a means to track your progress.

                       What Are Your Goals?

There are countless brands and businesses out there, each with its own business
model and approach. But there are really just four broad goals to aspire to with
your social media efforts:

Brand engagement, advocacy, and loyalty:

Your best, most loyal
customers will be the first to seek you out in the social sphere, and you
must be there for them, connecting one to one, cultivating a deeper
relationship, rewarding them with “surprise and delight” campaigns or
sweepstakes, and furthering their understanding of and enjoyment of
your brand. Perhaps you’ll associate yourself with the pleasures of
music, online games, or real-world events. Ideally, you’ll tie your
brand to a bigger cause. For instance, PetSmart’s social media effort
focuses not on cat food and dog collars, but on beloved, adorable pets
and the issue of animal welfare. Patagonia’s is about surfing, paddling,
and climbing-and environmentalism to ensure that those beautiful
landscapes are preserved. Pepsi isn’t about carbonated sugar water, but
about “living for the moment.”

Customer service:

Questions and complaints no longer obediently
queue to your 1-800 number or your customer service e-mail. They
come 24/7 to your Facebook or Twitter pages—or they’re posted
elsewhere in cyberspace, and it’s your CS team’s job to monitor the
web for brand mentions, so they can sniff out and resolve any budding
product-quality fiascos or brand blunders, wherever they emerge.

Lead generation:

Social is a great place to get your brand in front of
good, qualified prospects. Over 80% of consumers report they use the
web to research products and services. In a world where consumer
attention is fleeting and trust is scarce, businesses must embrace the
power of social media. Word-of-mouth endorsements from friends or
from “shoppers like me” are the single most trusted buying influence
today. Social media platforms allow you to introduce yourself to
potential candidates in an atmosphere that is more personal and less
overtly commercial than traditional online marketing. This lets your
brand loyalists spread the word and do your selling for you.

Brand awareness:

Paid social advertising can target prospects by
interest, sometimes incredibly precisely. Attract them with product
samplings and sweepstakes, or get them into your database to receive
your e-mail newsletter. But be sure to offer compelling, real benefits,
not just a succession of uninspired promotional spam. Another
powerful way to reach new customers is through the friend feeds of
your existing fans. Friends share a lot of the same interests, hobbies,
style, and tastes. That’s what makes them friends! So when your fans
are “liking” and commenting on your stuff—or when your website
connects to Facebook to let them share their product reviews and other
on-site activities with friends—you make an ideal, soft-sell, friendendorsed impression on their entire friend networks. The same echo is
heard when you ask your followers to retweet your messages on
Twitter. You can augment the friend feed with Facebook advertising
targeted to “friends of fans.” This network effect gives you impetus to
build your fan base to critical mass. The more fans you have, the more
friends of fans, and you’ll start to see your fan base grow organically,
day by day.

Revenue:

Social media efforts drive very real dollars, although not
always through a direct conduit. In Chapter 9, I’ll explore how
businesses are driving sales through group discounts, social coupons,
refer-a-friend campaigns, and Facebook e-commerce applications. In
this chapter, I’ll explain how to establish your foundation for social
commerce by showing you how to track revenue from social channels.