One of the most fascinating aspects of socialized media is its ability to track and measure almost anything that matters to your business—as it unfolds. With the right tools, we can peel back the layers between the digital and real worlds to reveal the actions, behavior, perception, advocates, influencers, trends, hot zones, and sentiments of the communities that define market places.
Whether you realize it or not, you are already making progress. To ease us into this complex and diverse discussion, I've peppered the materials needed to build a framework for relevant business metrics throughout this book.
In the Social CRM chapter (Chapter 23), we learn how to measure customer value and influence. Earlier in the book we examine the processes associated with identifying and establishing authority. We also review methods for discovering communities of influence and capturing relevant activity in order to institute a measurable Conversation Index. In addition, we learned how to define experiences, establish desired direction, and track and measure activity. Each step forms a foundation of metrics that serve as benchmarks moving forward—focused specifically on the programs and goals as implemented at program and brand levels and organized and managed by chartered business units within the company. After all, while the need to measure initiatives is pervasive, we have no basis for comparison without benchmarks.
There are several schools of thought when it comes to measuring the effectiveness of new media. In this chapter, we'll explore the tools and methodologies that translate activity into tangible value for your business and its management infrastructure.
Our first step, however, is to understand who within the organization is already measuring Web activity and immediately become part of the process. Typically the Web team or data analyst(s) maintain control of valuable online performance information, usually sourced from Web analytic tools such as Omniture or Google Analytics. While they're measuring and seeking data as it relates to the experience of online visitors, much of what they do is aligned with your work. Working together, your roles will adapt to more effectively translate data into business value. This analysis will impact and shape current and future campaigns.
While the allure of new media is hypnotizing, bewitching us to leap before looking or fire before aiming, its value and magic are truly revealed in the behavior and ensuing analysis that stems from our involvement.
In its first annual Social Media Survey published in 2009, PRWeek and MS&L discovered that 49 percent of companies do not have a specific approach regarding the use of social media on behalf of the company.[140] Without focus or purpose, what can we possibly measure? Equally interesting and troubling, 66 percent of companies reported that they have not made changes to products or marketing efforts based on customer feedback garnered in the Social Web.
In the same survey, companies reported the top applications for social media, which demonstrate the opportunities and extent of where measurement can apply and benefit the organization, once it's embraced:
47 percent: Manage and monitor customer feedback.
40 percent: Reach key influencers.
39 percent: Understanding the consumer and competitive landscape.
32 percent: Creating brand communities and fan pages.
31 percent: Media relations.
31 percent: Lead generation.
28 percent: Product launches.
19 percent: Product reviews.
6 percent: Monitoring conversations.
Indeed, we now have the ability to incite change directly and indirectly and track the resulting reactions and responses as they travel from community to community and person to person, transcending the boundaries between the digital and real worlds.
Twitter, for example, is considered a dream come true for marketers and advertisers. A study conducted by Interpret LLC discovered that people who use Twitter are much more receptive to advertising than the average Internet user.[141]
Engaging without analysis is akin to driving aimlessly, without direction or purpose.
Measurement is the key to relevance and future successes.
Here are just a few ways that change agents are measuring the ROI of social media:[142]
Best Buy measures the ROI of its internal "Blue Shirts Nation" community in terms of lower turnover rates.
The National Association of Manufacturers measures the ROI of its blog in terms of greater access to the halls of Capital Hill.
Dell measures the success of its IdeaStorm community both in terms of lower support costs and in the number of new ideas generated.
SeaWorld reached out to roller-coaster enthusiasts with its social media program and measured its ROI in terms of lower outreach costs as well as tickets sold.
One of the most commonly asked questions in new media marketing is often voiced by someone who is usually unqualified to appreciate the response.
You know the question. We hear it all the time.
"What's the ROI of this?"
While many think it, the initial answer is usually suppressed: "I dunno, what's the ROI of anything we do? What's the ROI of customer service? What's the ROI of PR? What's the ROI of branding? What's the return on human resources? While we're at it...what's the meaning of life?"
I'm only partially kidding.
What if we asked the question this way: "How can we measure ROI if the'I' stands for ignorance?"
As I always say, ignorance is bliss until it's not.
The truth is that we need to have answers. The good news is that the answers are available. If we don't know them, we must seek them. We just need to know what to look for and where.
In traditional business return on investment is calculated by dividing net profits after taxes by total assets.[143] For example, if you invested $50,000 and the investment was worth $75,000 after two years, your annual return on investment would be 25 percent. To get that result, you divide the $25,000 gain by your $50,000 investment, and then divide the 50 percent gain by 2.
In new media, ROI now also includes:
Return on participation, return on engagement, or return on involvement: The review of activities, patterns, reactions, and results associated with direct interaction or through social objects.
Return on experience: The analysis of the effects of experience through design aesthetics, engagement, and words.
Return on influence: The study of the impact of influence as it reverberates across communities and resulting behavior.
While experts play with the "I" in ROI or x in ROx to reflect other measurement scenarios, in order to truly garner insight and value from the gauging of our activities, we must first define the "R," or return. Defining the "R" allows us to analyze behavior and activity as it applies to the business. Return on investment is a bona fide analysis related to business finances. Its value is indisputable—even in the seemingly elusive world of social media.
This is done initially by asking a handful of simple questions:
What are we measuring and why?
What does success look like?
How will we know when we get there?
Are there incremental milestones worth noting?
Who else within the organization benefits from our work and how would they measure meaningful results?
Observing the literal translation of the "I" as investment, we must also factor in the corporate assets that power any and all business initiatives:
Intellectual capital
Resources
Finances
Campaign costs
As inexpensive as social media is considered to be in comparison to traditional programs, there are always fixed costs associated with any activity.
In June 2008, I published an early formula for calculating the "I" in ROI based on the research results from the Conversation Prism and Index studies.[144]
The average frequency of relevant conversations.
Identify the more active hubs and communities.
The context of the conversations in order to determine time and variety of resources required.
Resource Assessment Formula
Number of average relevant conversations per day per community.
Multiplied by the quantity of relevant communities.
Multiplied by 20 (average minutes required to research and respond and also monitor for additional responses), variable +/– dependent on the case, usually +.
Divided by 60 (minutes).
Equals the amount of time required and in turn, the resources and associated costs required depending on internal labor (salaries/hourly rates), external consulting fees, plus cost of equipment and other necessary resources.
Over the years, I have established the criterion to measure my work as it specifically relates to the companies and the business units each custom initiative was designed to benefit. Along the way, I have also maintained a spectator perspective, as I've documented the evolution of the interactive media landscape. Much of this is so new and exciting that businesses are diving in out of perceived or defined urgency without investing resources in acquiring, assessing, and embracing existing and modern techniques for evaluating participatory programs.
However, there are best practices tied to soft and explicit metrics that we can implement to justify and judge our work. Depending on the level of sophistication and also primary focus and purpose of your business, the combination of these calculations will vary in relevance and importance.
As we assess the methodologies, formulas, and criteria required for creating a blueprint for measurement, we must identify the attributes that are important to the organization as well as those that will receive buy-in at the departmental and executive level.
Don Bartholomew, a social media and public relations research and measurement consultant, observed that communications professionals, for example, often confuse "outputs" with "outtakes" or "outcomes"—basically confusing exposure with action.
He proposed a metrics taxonomy to help us truly understand our mission for measurement:[145]
Exposure: To what degree have we created exposure to content and message?
Engagement: Who, how, and where are people interacting/engaging with our content?
Influence: The degree to which exposure and engagement have influenced perceptions and attitudes.
Action: As a result of the effort, what actions, if any, has the target taken?
Bartholomew also defined three zones of measurement: "websites" on the left side (measured by Web analytics), "social networks" in the center (measured by content and behavior analysis) and "offline" on the right side (captured by audience research):
From the left, companies or brands control, own, or manage websites—corporate sites, Facebook pages, Twitter accounts, LinkedIn pages, and blogs by way of example—and create content that consumers may engage with. This zone is measured primarily by Web analytics. In the middle are the actual social networks and conversations between individuals. In this zone we are interested in data sets that cannot be gathered solely using Web analytics packages. How often is the brand being mentioned in conversation? What is the sentiment of the comments? How often is the brand being recommended and by whom? Content and behavior analysis, including tracking technologies, are the primary measurement tools in this zone. The third zone represents all the real-world, offline transactions that may be of interest. Did someone visit the store or attend an event? Did they buy a product? Did they recommend the brand or product to a friend over coffee?
We can't measure what we do not recognize as value. We cannot measure success if we don't know what success looks like. It is for these very reasons that we must first establish our day-to-day programs and incremental campaigns around the end-result—as shaped by the research work performed in the listening and observation stages of the Conversation Prism.
The queen of measurement, K.D. Paine (Katie Delahaye Paine), observed that the importance value of social media is what happens because of it. Therefore she suggests that we actually consider dropping "Media" from social media when it comes to measuring its effects.[146]
K.D. recognizes that the metrics required for measuring the effectiveness of social media are new and different from anything currently used in marketing: "We need to be working closely with the data geeks and the market research folks and measure the things that happen faster and better because of social networking."
K.D. outlined a change in business habits and efficiency as a foundation for metrics:
Process improvement
Time to market
Number of new product ideas
Number of suggestions
Length of time it takes to find a solution to a problem
Efficiency with which a product is launched
Level of social capital
Churn rates among your customers and/or employees
Cost of recruitment
Therefore, establishing objectives and tying activity back to the results we desire both require planning and calculation.
To help, K.D. Paine created an immensely helpful Measurement Program Checklist (edited to reflect the lessons shared in this book).[147]
Pat LaPointeat Marketing Measurement Today developeda framework for approaching social measurement in response to one of the most common questions he faced: "How should I measure the value of all the social marketing things we're doing, like Twitter, Linked-in, Facebook, and so forth?"
LaPointe's answer was as commonsensical as it was poignant, "Why are you doing them in the first place? If you can't answer that, you're wasting your time and the company's money."[148]
The frameworks proposed by K.D. Paine and Pat LaPointe represent methodical approaches to help us assess performance as compared to expectations with tangible business performance metrics.
Revisiting influence as I define it (the ability to inspire action and measure it), essentially the world of metrics opens up new opportunities well beyond company mentions and traditional website analytics. Suddenly "hits" or mentions mean very little if we are not observing what happens after the impression is made. Measuring traffic, hits, views, and referring sources requires purpose, a front-end in which we can engage, define and capture measurable activity, monitor, assess, and adapt. It is important to focus on performance and establish our key performance indicators (KPI) in advance, which will allow us to track progress and execution of our programs.
In social media, performance data is typically organized as follows (whether intentionally or unintentionally):
Volume
Engagement
Action
Remember, no matter how many formulas you review or trends you observe, in order for metrics to be accurate and meaningful, they have to apply to your world. Therefore any combination of Volume, Engagement, and Action can define success and failure, which ultimately determines your level of authority and influence.
Volume
Volume is symbolic of brand presence, the frequency with which it appears, its amplification, and its reach across the Web. It represents the extent to which your brand appears and resonates online, as defined by the communities, conversations, and people behind the surrounding activity.
In order to better understand how to recognize and quantify volume, we must define the characteristics and associated attributes with defining individual value:
Dialogue: The quantity of discussions transpiring in the front and back channels, taking the shape of questions, answers, suggestions, and general interaction around the brand, as documented by networks and the Social Web as a whole.
Themes/memes: Trends, topics, and discussion threads related to the brand, without direct influence from the brand.
SEO and SMO: Linkbacks and links to the brand site, page, or a branded social object with value symbolized in the form of Page Rank, Relevance, and Authority.
Sentiment: The perception of the state of the brand at any moment in time—the process of attempting to shift sentiment in the "conversion" section is the difference between volume and action.
Customer satisfaction: The state of customer fulfillment and gratification (see details in Chapter 23).
Audience: The size of individual communities, networks, and social graphs, measured independently as well as in aggregate.
Engagement
One of the most compelling aspects of interactive media is represented in the moniker that I just used: interactive media. It's indicative of two-way exchanges and it's measurable as such. I describe engagement as the time spent with the brand, either individually, in a community environment, or through direct interaction. Engagement metrics are captured through the impact garnered from conversations with brand representatives, time spent viewing or taking action around social objects, as well as browsing, viewing, and interfacing with branded online content.
Engagement can include:
Conversations: Direct exchanges tied to the brand, represented through comments, blog posts, Tweets, and Retweets, wall posts, and shares—as eConsultancy says, "An engaged customer is a highly valuable one."[149]
Time: The duration spent viewing or interacting with the brand, a social object, or content, from widgets to pages to profiles to conversations.
Social graph/relationships: The size and shape of a social network tied to a person or a brand, measured by quality and quantity.
Fans/followers: The number of individuals subscribed to receive the updates in social networks and communities.
Interaction: The level in which people contribute information, social objects, and other content to brand hosted communities and networks.
Registrations: Individuals who proactively register or subscribe to information, content, offers, and so forth.
Bookmarking: The process of publicly sharing favorite content through social bookmarks, "favorites," and "likes" (which are all discoverable and calculable).
Traffic: The cumulative activity directly at or around a site, page, profile, or social object.
Views: Less about Web pages or more specifically tied to the viewing of specific social objects, such as videos, images, and widgets.
Shares: The act of sharing content and objects across the Social Web.
Immersion: The depth of interaction or engagement with online content, applications, conversations, or social objects.
Conversion
Action is profound in both its value to the bottom line and in its ability to reveal and convey meaningful and discernible statistics. The ability to capture and measure action, if tied to calculated social programs, and meaningful business metrics is among the most salient forms of assessing return on investment as a true performance equation. Whereas volume and engagement capture the state of brand perception engagement and presence, action reveals the activities that directly contribute to business health and profitability. This is why social media programs should feature carefully designed calls to action combined with the ability to capture and analyze the data on the backend—in real time.
Quantifiable data points and key performance indicators and measurable tactics can include:
Conversions: The process of transforming individuals from one state to something of greater value, such as prospects and visitors into customers, or customers into advocates.
Click-throughs: Crossing the chasm between social presences and objects to branded sites and microsites rife with calls to action—transcending from the virtual into real-world customers and users.
Offers: Social media is expected to be a tremendous catalyst for individualized deals, discounts, exclusive offers, specials for products, services, and also local transactions. Airlines are measuring the response for special fares they offer in social networks; local businesses are documenting responses tied to specialized programs designed to lure prospects and transform them into customers; these efforts link to sales as a metric.
Ratings: Customer review sites are repositories for brand experiences and sentiment, without astroturfing these sites, customers can be encouraged and directed to share positive thoughts.
Increased sales: If @delloutlet can attribute approximately $3 million directly to its twitter stream, Blendtec can recognize a 500 percent increase in sales, and other brands can realize increased revenue through its engagement specifically in the Social Web, integrating social programs and barometers designed to trigger and capture sales is within your grasp.
Data capture/registrations: Growing lists of targeted prospects and customers is ideal for increasing relationships as well as direct communications channels—the number of individuals who share information either goes up or down based on your activity.
Conversations/share of voice: As discussed previously, conversations and share of voice are identifiable and measurable, providing a lens and revealing the state of presence and sentiment as a solitary number or in comparison to competition at any point in time, over time.
Sentiment conversion: While sentiment is a reflection of volume and state, the act of shifting sentiment is a strategy and tactic that is both identifiable and measurable
Customer/acquisition/retention/referrals/loyalty: Customer interaction and recognition improves satisfaction, loyalty, and future revenue—assessing the cost of customer acquisition and retention using other forms of marketing and service programs and media compared to the costs associated with your social programs. As a metric, Zappos.com (a wholly owned subsidiary of Amazon.com) reports that 75 percent of its annual $1 billion in sales are from repeat customers.[150]
Lead generation: The number of new prospects acquired through specific new media initiatives compared to other programs and dedicated performance.
Feedback/change: Capturing thoughts and feedback through online voting and survey initiatives can be measured in change and interaction—the value of a brilliant idea is priceless.
Visitors/traffic: Whether we're pointing people toa particular place or steering activity and responses based on our interaction, traffic is measurable and indicative of interest and movement.
Downloads: The number of people who get something in exchange for something, for example, a downloaded widget, custom wallpaper, a white paper, coupon upon completion of registration, following, becoming a fan, and so forth.
New markets: The establishment of new markets and channels based on engagement in nicheworks.
Participation/membership: Capturing affinity is instantaneous in its results and value, designing programs around membership drives (such as a fan page, group, etc.) reveals the growth rate of a community (dialogue and interaction also become factors).
Cost savings/avoidance: What did the company save by applying feedback and insight gleaned from the Social Web, solicited through either feedback or direct interaction.
Yes, more Cs! For those in the online marketing and advertising world, this section will be remedial. However, since social and participatory methodologies and programs are transforming many disciplines within the business, we are creating hybrids of professionals who now need to become a jack-of-all-trades as well as a master of some.
The Cs in this case refer to cost, which can represent the "I" in ROI, as it serves as a benchmark for measuring the true price associated with activity—taking the form of monetary and resource assets. Their meaning and value in the era of interactive media is often debated, but using the law of "it depends," any one or combination of these Cs can help you measure what specifically matters to your business.
Cost per impression (CPM): The cost of acquiring eyeballs through impressions. Paymentisoften triggeredbymutually agreeing upon activities such as a click-through, registration, sale, and so on. The CPM deal is calculated by multiplying the CPM rate by the number of CPM units. For example, one million impressions at $10 CPM equals a total price of $10,000. The amount paid per impression is calculated by dividing the CPM by 1,000—for example, $10 CPM/1,000 impressions = $.01 per impression.[151]
Cost per click (CPC): The cost or cost-equivalent paid per click-through or a campaign where payment is based on impressions, not clicks. For example, impressions are sold for $10 CPM with a click-through rate (CTR) of 2 percent. 1,000 impressions×2 percent CTR =20 click-throughs. $10 CPM/20 click-throughs = $.50 per click.[152]
Click-through rate (CTR): The analysis of activity that sends a viewer from one place to a place of designation. It is the average number of click-throughs per hundred ad impressions, usually expressed as a percentage. The CTR measures the percentage of people who clicked through a media asset to arrive at a destination site. It is used as a measure of immediate response, but not to show the overall response.
Social media is encouraging metrics that identify real business value, resulting in less interest in click-through rates and more interest in conversion rates. Active and high click-through rates don't necessarily guarantee good conversion rates, with the two rates often sharing an inverse relationship.[153]
Eric Von Coelln, who evaluates the numbers behind social media marketing and gaming, assessed the click-through rates after tweets to benchmark engagement. Von Coelln analyzed tweets that contained links from powerhouse brands, including @Zappos, @JetBlue, @SouthwestAir, and @ZyngaPoker. His study found that 1 to 3 percent of active followers actually click-through to view the content.[154] Hence, CTR in this case didn't necessarily amount to much more than a benchmark number, but if we explored the activity that transpired after the click-through, we could assess conversion rates or, as you see next, the ability to recognize the effects of social actions.
Cost per action (CPA): A model in which payment is based solely on qualifying actions such as sales or registrations. The actions defined in a CPA agreement are tied to conversion, with sales and registrations representing the most common transactions. The CPA model resides at the opposite end of the C spectrum from CPM, with the CPC somewhere in the middle.[155] Affiliate marketing, for example, is one of the most often referred to performance-based models, where merchants and advertisers determine what actions they choose to reward and how much they are willing to pay for that activity.
Cost per engagement (CPE): CPE is a performance-based metric that assumes advertising impressions are free. Advertisers and marketers only pay based on user engagement, wherein a prospect interacts with the content. Examples include polling, games, rollovers, tours, downloads, and so forth.
Another form of CPE is analyzing the fixed costs associated with existing resources such as employees, contractors, and services. We can measure time associated with activity designed to produce results or drive action. Knowing the cost of time spent to yield an outcome gives us the ability to capture and assess engagement over time as it relates to specific goals.
New media is an equalizing medium. As such, the social objects and engagement strategies that are introduced through online communities provide much more value than exposure and branding.
In one such case, David Berkowitz, senior director of emerging media and innovation at 360i, proposed CPSA,[156] a new pricing model for social media that factors the cost per social action. CPSA is connected to distinct social qualities that lead to either new relationships (such as through "viral" referrals or acquiring new followers and fans) or deepening existing relationships (such as through "likes," comments, responses, and ratings). Berkowitz proposed that the primary benefit of CPSA is that it offers marketers a program where they know that they are paying specifically for social and relationship-oriented programs.
Engagement value and presence differ from network to network and from community to community. For example, the rate at which people are exposed to and thus interact with an object or person in Twitter is different from the rate in MySpace, which is different from YouTube or Facebook. Embedding calculated and productive action within any existing framework allows you to capture a "cost per social action," not as a standard industry metric, but as a form of tailored measurement within predefined and understood paradigms. That activity can be measured within each network regardless of the "C" program mentioned previously, as well as in the "free" programs we pursue through direct engagement—responding, interacting, sharing content, introducing objects, and so on.
Procter & Gamble became one of the first companies to launch a results-based online ad model that rewards publishers for consumer engagement.[157] P&G, which owns brands such as Gillette, Pampers, and Pantene, will offer financial incentives for publishers where its campaigns receive greater engagement, beyond ad or content views, sign-ups, game play, and so on. The move essentially forces publishers to assume a proactive role in embracing accountability and also inspiring creativity to effectively partner with brands to cultivate meaningful interactions with audiences.
In response to P&G's announcement, Jack Wallington, program manager at the Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB), seemed to support P&G, but added a note of caution: "It's not the way the whole market is heading, but looking at more than traffic is a good thing. But even with CPE and other statistics, people are missing a trick in terms of branding power. Even if users don't click-through, they could still be engaged. I hope P&G takes that into consideration."[158]
Jerry Lloyd-Williams, digital strategy director at U.K.-based media agency Mediacom, believes that CPE requires accountability, making the media buy a more collaborative experience. Mediacom, for instance, worked with Volkswagen and Times Online to create a CPE campaign, "A Life More Streamlined," for the Volkswagen Passat. The Times Online was compensated each time a person watched a video, listened to a podcast, or downloaded material.[159]
The data, of course, changes from network to network, but it is this information that must be uncovered through industry research or through direct consumer analysis to create an internal benchmark for your activity.
Charlene Li, founder of the Altimeter Group and former social analyst at Forrester Research, conducted a social engagement review in conjunction with Wetpaint of the 100 most valuable brands, as identified by BusinessWeek/Interact.[160] The ENGAGEMENTdb 2009 Report observed the engagement programs as well as their performances.[161]
The team critiqued the brands on the extent (breadth) of engagement across the Social Web as well as level of engagement (depth), such as whether they reply to comments made on blog posts or respond to consumers on Twitter, and so forth. Each brand was given a numerical score.
The top 10 ENGAGEMENTdb brands with their scores in 2009 were:
Starbucks (127)
Dell (123)
eBay (115)
Google (105)
Microsoft (103)
Thomson Reuters (101)
Nike (100)
Amazon (88)
SAP (86)
10. Tie: Yahoo!/Intel (85)
As we're enthralled in the exploration of engagement metrics such as CPE, social actions, or engagement, the ENGAGEMENTdb report did find a correlation between engagement and financial performance.
But even more interesting is that we also looked at the financial performance of the brands, grouping the companies with the greatest depth and breadth into a group called "Social Media Mavens." These mavens on average grew 18 percent in revenues over the last 12 months, compared to the least engaged companies who on average saw a decline of 6 percent in revenue during the same period. The same holds true for two other financial metrics, gross margin and net profit.
The metrics we establish are derivative of the mission, purpose, and presence we embody throughout the organization and are truly measured by how our intentions are conveyed through the champions and advocates we empower. This sentiment and philosophy is echoed in Li's introduction of the ENGAGEMENTdb report:[162]
The study also looks at the engagement best practices of four companies: Starbucks, Dell, SAP, and Toyota. Some of the key findings include:
Emphasize quality, not just quantity.
Engagement is more than just setting upa blog and letting viewers post comments; it's more than just having a Facebook profile and having others write on your wall. Don't just check the box; engage with your customer audience.
To scale engagement, make social media part of everyone's job.
The best practice interviews have a common theme— social media is no longer the responsibility of a few people in the organization. Instead, it's important for everyone across the organization to engage with customers in the channels that make sense—a few minutes each day spent by every employee adds up to a wealth of customer touch points.
Doing it all may not be for you—but you must do something.
Start you must, or risk falling far behind other brands, not only in your industry, but across your customers' general online experience.
Find your sweet spot.
Engagement can't be skin-deep, nor is it a campaign that can be turned on and off. True engagement means full engagement in the channels where you choose to invest. Thus, choose carefully and advocate strongly to acquire the resources and support you will need to succeed.
We're learning that social media engagement is tied to all outbound forms of marketing, service, communications, branding, and relationship management. It's less about talking "at" people and more about collaboration and movement, which offer more value and quality to people on both sides of the equation and thus ensures measurable impact.
In mid-2009, branding, social, and experiential marketing and advertising firm Razorfish released a Social Influence Marketing Report.[163] In the report, Razorfish proposed a Social Influence Score. Global Social Media leader Shiv Singh described the new metric as an attempt to bring clarity to the chaos: "Brands...can't just push messages out. Whatever they do or don't do, they need to measure."
The score is the representation of online conversations related to a brand and then further categorized by brand and comparative industry sentiment. It is designed to capture the state of brand health.
The formula is as follows:
Calculate the total number of conversations regarding a brand.
Categorize by sentiment (positive, neutral, and negative).
Subtract the number of negative mentions from the sum of positive and neutral comments.
Divide the resulting number by the total number of conversations—this produces the net sentiment.
Divide brand-specific net sentiment by 100 times the net sentiment attributed to each industry to produce the SIM score. Example of the SIM Score for GM
Net Sentiment for the Brand: Positive
Conversations: 22,355
Neutral Conversations: 80,764
Negative Conversations: 19,127
Total Conversations for the Brand: 122,246
Positive + Neutral - Negative Conversations:
103,119 - 19,127 = 83,992
Net Sentiment/Total Conversations:
83,992/122,246 = 0.68
Net Sentiment for the Industry:
Positive Conversations: 399,431
Neutral Conversations: 1,465,720
Negative Conversations: 241,372
Total Conversations for the Industry: 2,106,523
Positive + Neutral - Negative Conversations:
1,865,151 - 241,372 = 1,623,779
Net Sentiment/Total Conversations:
1,623,779/2,106,523 = 0.77
SIM Score:
83,992/1,623,779 = 0.051 × 100 = 5
Another way to establish brand health and establish share of voice now and over time is to use the techniques shared in the chapter discussing the Conversation Prism and Conversation Index.
It recognizes the state of awareness and reputation to not only measure, but also to inspire rapid evolution.
By listening to the conversations on the Social Web, we can capture the following data using a period of time (a particular month for example):
Number of conversations related to brand/product within allrelevant networks (blogs, Twitter, Facebook, etc.).
Categorize conversations by networks of relevance.
Sorted by business unit (Marketing, Service, Product, Communications, etc.).
Sentiment (Positive, Neutral, Negative).
Repeat this process for key competitors.
This data should be captured in the form of a matrix or report so that we can refer to it every month.
To determine Share of Voice and the State of Sentiment, we simply capture the total number of conversations and organize it as such:
Share of Voice: Total Conversations in the Social Web compared to brand/competitor share:
Your brand represents X percent
Competitor A = X percent
Competitor B = X percent
Competitor C = X percent
Competitor D = X percent
Total = 100 percent
Sentiment Score:
Total positive, neutral, or negative conversations divided by total number of conversations, including positive, neutral, and negative for a particular span of time (example: 12,000 positive conversations divided by 25,000 total number of conversations = 48 percent).
Compare results to competitors for each state of sentiment.
In almost every form of measurement, the need for comparative data is prevalent. At the campaign and brand level, a snapshot of time and activity is necessary to serve as a benchmark related to the state of brand-specific activity as well as that of the competition. Whether it's the Conversation Index, the Social Influence Score, or existing data that reveals sentiment, traffic, and activity volume, sales, action, competitive intelligence, and so forth, we must first establish a benchmark for every program by which to compare future socialization of resources and objects.
For example, how much are you paying now to acquire customers and prospects or market share using other marketing channels and using the preceding metrics?
Everything we discuss and review serves as the base to compare our work and results to internal initiatives and in direct comparison to the efforts of our competitors. Thus, we learn and adapt to create more engaging and holistic programs that are measurable and versatile. By defining what it is we need to grow, we can determine what it is we need to measure, which dictates the social programs we employ and how we ultimately engage.
In the end, the best thing to measure is the predefined activity you plan on capturing. Give them something to talk about. Give them a reason to connect. Moniter, document, and measure everything that happens as a result.