Next week, I’ll be moderating a BlogWorld NYC panel about measurement. Committed to digging deeper than just how to measure “fans” and “followers,” the panelists — Shonali Burke, Johna Burke and Margot Savell — thought it would be helpful to start by understanding what measurement-specific challenges people are facing. What questions are your bosses or clients asking you about your PR and social media efforts? When it comes to measurement, where do you get stumped? If you have a topic you’d like us to address, there are two ways to let us know:
- Comment on this post.
- Leave your answer on the TwtPoll survey. (This ensures anonymity, which can be helpful if you have a question, but don’t feel comfortable “claiming” it.)
And, while we’re on the topic of measurement, here are five resources that I’ve bookmarked recently and thought you might find helpful:
- Measuring influence in the digital age: Impressions, likes and followers — “PR people, who were used to crowing over getting 50 great “placements” or increasing the numbers of “media hits” from 100 to 200 per month, were now seeing 10,000 or 20,000 “hits” in social media. At first it was impressive, but when people started digging into those pretty line charts and bar graphs and realizing how much of this information was irrelevant, they became nervous and overwhelmed.
So if you only want to measure what matters, how do you sort the good stuff from the trivial when traditional directories aren’t accurate and can mislead you?” - How to Use Google Analytics for Beginners — Every PR person should be familiar with Google Analytics (or whatever system you use to track your brand’s/client’s web traffic.) Even at the most basic level, website analytics offer a goldmine of information — from key words (helpful for writing blog post and press release headlines) … to pages that attract the most views (mostly likely, content that resonates with your audience).
- Creating Your Measurement Index – “I think if we put our minds to it and didn’t cop out about our hatred of math, we could come up with a list of metrics that not only fit our particular campaign but are widely accepted as metrics in the field. This could be anything from impressions, sentiment, mention prominence, spokesperson quoted, mention in a target publication, raw number of overall mentions and the presence of key messages in the articles. Those are mostly traditional PR metrics, but I’m sure you could come up with a similar list for social media. These metrics taken individually don’t mean a heck of a lot, but brought together into some sort of score tell a pretty powerful picture.”
- 5 Objectives for Social Media Measurement — “One of the most important pieces of putting together any kind of sound analysis strategy around social media is figuring out what, exactly, you’re trying to diagnose and determine. We often use the term “ROI” as a catch-all for saying “prove that this is worth it to our business”, when there are really many ways to look at success, value, impact, or input. Let’s take a look at five useful objectives for measurement itself, and some of the metrics that might apply.”
- 6 Critically Undervalued Social Media Success Metrics — “People who say social media isn’t measurable aren’t looking very hard. The truth is that there are at least 25 viable metrics you can use to evaluate the success of your social media efforts. The challenge isn’t measurability, it’s knowing which measures are meaningful. Here are the 6 critically undervalued social media success metrics.”
What questions do you have about social media measurement? Share away in the comments …