Measurement: The name of the game in social media

The new year brings new challenges to social media. After reading a myriad of blogs and tweets on this topic, the theme of 2011’s social media activity has become quite clear. It’s all about measurement.

The theme of this month’s Publicity Club of Chicago luncheon could not have been more appropriate. The panel, which included representatives from BurrellesLuce Marketing, PR Newswire and Cision US, used their own professional experiences to offer advice on the best practices of social media measurement.

As PR pros, we enthusiastically dove into Facebook, Twitter and the like when the social media phenomenon first hit. New platforms meant news ways for our clients and companies to make an impression. We were (and still are) excited to engage with others and carry our creative energy over to online channels. But now is the time to focus on results.

Here are the key takeaways from the panel discussion:

• At the very least, 10% of your social media activity should be dedicated to assessing your efforts. 
• Unique URLs are the key to tracking and monitoring success.
• Look to search terms to see if you're connecting with the people you want to connect with and to better understand what information people are seeking.  
• When you receive a negative comment, more times than not your community will come to your aid. Either way, make sure you always issue a response.
• Know how you can influence your business and know what influences your business, in general. Use that knowledge to drive your social media efforts.
• With Twitter, the limit on character space makes it difficult to judge the tone of a tweet. In order to understand the tone, you need to look at who the message is coming from and who's listening. 
• Get to know web analytics to properly track your social media success. Google Analytics is a free and simple tool that offers a wide-range of data.
• When conducting analysis, you need to have both qualitative and quantitative data points. Data is just noise until you add the quantitative element to it.   

-- Katie Fanella 

Comments

[Katie Fanella]

Thanks for the comment, Charles. You're right, both of those URL shortening services are incredibly valuable in that regard. I appreciate your insight!

[Charles Falls]

Nice post, but i don't think that unique urls should be used for a variety of reasons, with the biggest being that you cannot track different sources that drive people to the same page. Bitlys and Owlys are all trackable by source. Plus they shorten the URL for Tweeting.