Measuring social media likes and clicks was enough when social media was a young technology. Now it is an important and sophisticated customer engagement tool, so measurements need more sophistication to ensure social media strategies are making the desired impact.
By Joshua Ferdinand

Social media is now a major marketing technology for building a brand's reputation and driving business from the customer's first access to desired outcomes like a sale. Initially, the measurements commonly used were very simple – number of likes and clicks and then conversion rates. The entire middle of the customer journey was ignored, so there was no way to know what could be done to make a bigger impact.

To get the full value of social media, measurements need to provide information about strategy effectiveness, content impact and progress toward desired outcomes. Without that kind of information, it is easy for marketing resources to be misdirected.

Social Media Journey Maps
Social media is complex, like so many other programs and processes based in technology. Most companies use multiple social media programs – Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube and numerous others.

Unfortunately, many companies also fail to identify the specific outcomes desired which means they do not develop good measurements that tell them if the customer social media journey is achieving goals. They count the clicks and the sales, but it is like watching the start of a road race, going home to take a nap and then returning to watch the winners cross the finish line. What were the circumstances that led to the winners crossing the finish line first, who stumbled along the way, and who dropped out?

Developing a customer journey map that incorporates social media is important to understanding the path customers take toward making a purchase decision or supporting a brand. The journey has multiple steps, and the idea is to identify all the customer touchpoints.

Some touchpoints are on social media, and social media can actually make up most of the touchpoints. For example, a consumer can see an ad on television and quickly look up the company on social media. From that point, the consumer reads posts, clicks on links that take him or her to a website, and decides to make a purchase. After using the product, the customer becomes a brand advocate, writing positive posts on the company social media sites.

A business needs to develop measurements that inform about the impact of social media touchpoints. Once on social media, touchpoints can include watching a video, participating in marketing contests, reading posts, clicking on embedded links, viewing images or infographics, and so on. As consumers indicate their interest by what they click on, technology allows businesses to retarget ads that may offer discounts or other purchase incentives. Each activity is measurable, and measurements provide information on the journey from beginning to end.

Measuring What Counts
Knowing the number of clicks a particular social media site gets is very limited information. Of more importance is the actions each consumer takes to reach a purchase. Social media can be "standalone," in that someone can go directly to social media, or a person may take a different route by first seeing a website, a print or TV ad, a billboard, or someone makes a referral. The person lands on social media and the journey continues.

The availability of data enables companies to dig deep into key performance indicators (KPIs) and to measure qualitative factors like positive and negative customer perceptions. Google Analytics generates metrics that identify traffic driven by social media and where the clicking led. It is a good start but not near enough. Of interest to businesses is the share of traffic that social media drives. Is most of the customer traffic coming from social media? If so, the information can be used to fine-tune marketing efforts and assign resources.

Other types of factors to measure include those related to engagement. How committed are the people accessing social media.

Engagement is reflected in the people who offer information in posts, revisit the social media sites, actively promote the brand and believe in the brand. Measuring engagement lets a company know if its efforts on social media are working. Social analytics guide the company's social media postings by letting it know what to post, and when and where to post it to maximize engagement.

It is also important to consider how the industry uses social media. Social media sites provide industry sector data. To compete, a business needs to benchmark against the competition, so tracking performance against competitor or industry standards can keep a business on track.

Assessing Outcomes
Identifying social media goals tops the list of planning. Without goals, there is little to measure because managers must know what the desired outcomes are in order to develop strategy.

Outcomes can vary widely. A business might want to reach new or previously unserved markets, strengthen the reputation of the brand, develop brand ambassadors, streamline or increase the effectiveness of marketing, or increase traffic.

By determining the desired outcomes, the metrics can be developed. Vanity metrics were acceptable in the past, but today there is a need to develop metrics that guide decision-making and strategy development. Vanity metrics, like the number of followers, make the company look good but really have little meaning when it comes to sales.

An informative metric, for example, is ROI. It figures how well social media investments are paying off. Other actionable metrics include the costs to generate a lead and the content share tracking.

Social media metrics are getting more sophisticated. Companies like Skorr are generating new tools that measure online social media influence per channel (type of social media) and produce a combined score. Skorr uses hard data and machine learning, language processing, link analysis, and emotion analysis to measure social influence and help managers make good decisions.

It could be said to be the future of social media analytics, but the future is here now.