A presentation on the need for social media measurement and how we can use various measures to get a feel for the effectiveness and the performance of various social media engagements. A few social media channels are used as examples.

1. Social Media Metrics. Measuring the ROI on
using Web 2.0 tools for brand building and
marketing
Mahesh Patwardhan
Digital and New Media Consultant
November 2009

2. Why do we need to measure how our Social Media
implementations?

3.  Social media are internet-based tools . Some features:
 allow sharing of information such as videos, audio, blogs,
reviews etc.
 enable discussion on different topics.
 provide a platform for networking with friends
 allow the building of relationships between various entities
 Evolution-wise:
 The early web era : corporate web sites – a static online
brochure – informing customers what you had to offer along
with an online guide to your business.
 Today: Web 2.0 and Social Media - all about relationships in
the connected world
 The big question: Can it stand on its own and replace all
other forms of marketing?
 The big answer: No.

4.  Social media complements other online and offline
marketing initiatives that any company may undertake. It
does not replace other media.
 The Investment plan, media strategy and execution all
need to be put together just as for other marketing
channels.
 A mechanism is needed for measuring the returns that you
are getting on your investment.
 You need something to help you define the criteria that
will measure the success of your efforts.
 This is the challenge.
 With websites and banners it was easy.
 You measured page views, unique visitors, number of visits,
referrals
 you measured impressions, clicks, click-through rates
 So, what do you do when it comes to Social Media?

5.  First, you need to remember that Social Media
marketing is not about hard-sell.
 It is
 Where you try and influence a selected section of your
audience using sources of authority.
 Where you try and engage and influence and bring about
interaction amongst your network and communities from other
networks.
 Beyond a certain point you will have little control over the
spread of word as it then becomes a viral which moves along
based on trust and credibility that the users have amongst
themselves.
 It is essential that you have a well defined
framework that will allow you to measure.

6.  We can define the categories that measure
 Outputs.
 This measures effectiveness and efficiency.
 Examples :
 what is the number of positive reviews produced
 how many people discussed this in blogs
 how many times did your brand get talked about?
 Outcomes.
 This measure the change that comes about from the activity.
 Examples:
 how many more positive reviews do you have for a new product or service that
you have launched?
 Business results .
 This has a more direct bearing on the actual sales.
 Gives a clear measure of how your efforts have helped you achieve a specific
business objective, for eg., growth in sales.

7.  There are tools available that can measure all these; For eg –
 how many people commented on your blog
 how many people shared your article
 how many reviewed or voted on your product/services?
 How many forwarded or engaged in discussion about your brand?
 What you need to remember
 keep a firm watch on the business outcome
 you have to monitor this with reference to what else you are
measuring.
 If your business objectives are not being met, despite a good amount
of engagement of users with your brand, then you have to revisit your
strategy.
 Measurements help in navigation and allows you to make course
corrections as you go after your business objectives.

8. Why is listening important? Why is it an important
part of any Social Media Strategy?

9.  Listening is important. We need to listen
 To be able to gauge the sentiment around your
brand
 To be able to manage your reputation online
 To identify areas and issues that need to be
addressed around your brand
 To be able to identify and leverage
relationships to promote your brand

10.  There are lots of free tools out there that can be
used for listening.
 There are paid services also that will provide you
with reports on the buzz surrounding your brand.
 Some free listening tools available are:
 Social Mention
 Same Point
 Technorati
 Blog Pulse
 Board Reader
 Google
 Yahoo Groups

11. Presenting the metrics used across a few popular
social media channels

12.  A blog is a type of Web site used by individuals,
groups or business entities
 Used to publish opinions and commentary on
various topics which can cover current events,
popular themes, or even be like a personal diary.
 Blog posts are listed in reverse chronological
order and also allow for comments by readers.
 Posts can be in the form of text, image, video,
or rich-media formats.
 Blogging platforms allow for rapid syndication of
content to interested audiences. eg. RSS

13.  An indication of the audience growth could be
 How many Unique visitors visit your blog?
 How many Subscribers does your blog have?
 What is the number of page views for your blog?
 What is the amount of time sSpent on your blog?
 The level of user participation is
 What is the volume of comments on your blog?
 What is the number of comments in relation to the
number of posts? This gives an indication of the
Conversation rate
 Citations and external acknowledgements
 How many unique blogs link to your blog? (citations)

14.  The leading social network, Facebook, allows you to engage with
your fans
 It provides in-context insights into the interactions
 You can see how users are interacting with your page, by Wall
posts, likes and comments.
 Post Quality shows how engaging your posts are to your fans
 The Fans Over Time graph lets you track when users decide to
unsubscribe
 Statistics are provided on where your fan base is located and which

15.  Interactions over time
 Interactions
 Interactions per post
 Post Quality
 Posts
 Discussion Posts
 Reviews
 Mentions
 All Fans over time
 Total Fans / Unsubscribed Fans
 New / Removed Fans
 Top Countries
 Demographics
 Page Views
 Unsubcribes / Resubscribes
 Media Consumption

16.  Apart from these graphs, the following insights
are also provided:
 Top Countries
 Top Cities
 Top Languages
 You can see the Total Fans by
 Male / Female
 Age Group
 Active Fans are also shown by
 Male / Female
 By Age Group

17.  Twitter is a micro-blogging service
 It enables its users to send and read messages known as
tweets.
 Tweets are
 text-based posts of up to 140 characters
 displayed on the author's profile page
 delivered to the author's subscribers
 The authors subscribers are known as followers.
 Performance can be measure by Reach, Demand, Engagement
and Velocity.

18.  What is Reach?
 Are your tweets interesting and informative enough to build an
audience?
 How far has your content been spread across Twitter?
 Are people adding you to lists and are those lists being followed?
 Reach is measured by
 Total Number of followers
 Total Retweets
 Total number of friends

19.  What is Engagement?
 How diverse is the group that @ messages you?
 Are you broadcasting or participating in conversation?
 Engagement can be measured by
 Follower Mention %
 Inbound Msgs per Outbound Msg
 Unique @Senders

20.  What is Velocity?
 How likely are you to be retweeted?
 Do a lot of people retweet you or is it always the same
few followers?
• Velocity is measured by
 Unique Messages Retweeted
 Unique Retweeters
 Follower Retweet

21.  YouTube is a leading Video Sharing site
 On YouTube you can
 Create your own channel
 Share your videos
 Subscribe to other peoples channel’s and videos
 Comment on videos
 YouTube offers measurements based on views,
demographics and community

22.  Views
 Daily Views
 How many views are your videos getting?
 Views / Unique Users
 Demographics
 Where are the viewers from?
 By region
 By country
 Age ranges for male / female /all
 Genders for all age groups

23.  Community
 Community Engagements
 Number of users who have either commented on or rated
your videos
 Total / Engagements per view
 Ratings
 Total / Ratings per view / Average Rating
 Comments
 How many comments have your videos received
 Total / Comments per view
 Favourites
 How many times have your videos been marked as
favourites?
 Total / Favourites per view

24.  Flickr is a popular photo sharing platform
 Flickr offers statistics on the following
 View counts
 Photos and Videos
 Photostream
 Sets
 Collections
 Your most viewed photos and videos
 So far today
 Yesterday
 Referrers
 So far today
 Yesterday

25.  Breakdown of your photos
 Public / Private
 Friends only / Family only / Friends and family
 Photos
 Videos
 Tagged / Not tagged
 Geotagged / Not geotagged
 In sets / Not in sets
 In groups / Not in groups
 With Views / Without views
 With comments / Without comments
 Favourited / Not favourited

26.  This was a short presentation on the need for social
media measurement and how we can use various
measures to get a feel for the effectiveness and the
performance of various social media engagements. A
few social media channels were used as examples.
 Social media does not lend itself to direct marketing
and hard-sell. Rather it can used very effectively by
leveraging the relationships that exist within the
various networks and communities.
 Measuring the effectiveness of our selected
engagements as it helps revisit our strategies and
make necessary course corrections as required.