Yes, Virginia, You Can Measure Social Media Marketing
Written on December 17, 2009 by Susan Payton
One of the biggest trending topics in social media marketing right now is whether and how you can measure results. There’s one camp that says it can’t be done, and that it’s no different than trying to measure how many sales you get from a billboard. Then there’s the other camp that says you can, if you know what to do.
David Berkowitz is in that second camp. He wrote a great blog post that gives you “100 Ways to Measure Social Media.” Check it out.
David talks a lot about buzz. While many will groan at the idea of measuring using buzz, hear me out. When you brand your company, you spend marketing dollars to establish an idea about what your company stands for. It doesn’t directly turn into immediate sales. So consider buzz the same. You market to get people talking about you on different channels.
He also talks about engagement and how often people are talking about you. These too are worth tracking.
Here are a few others that he mentions, but click here to see all 100 ways to measure social media marketing.
1. Volume of consumer-created buzz for a brand based on number of posts
2. Amount of buzz based on number of impressions
3. Shift in buzz over time
4. Buzz by time of day / daypart
5. Seasonality of buzz
Thanks for the great post, David!
Thanks so much for sharing this. I was also wary of mentioning too much about buzz since it doesn’t mean much if all you’re looking at is buzz spikes. But it does matter quite a bit in the greater context, and we’re just beginning to figure out how to really measure and harness it. And when you know how buzz is trending for you and competitors, who is talking, what channels the buzz is in, the sentiment of it, etc etc etc, it gets really powerful.
David–
Thanks for writing it! I’m just pleased that the whole “we can’t measure ROI for social media” argument is petering out. Thanks for clarifying great ways to do so.
Susan