Three Fundamentals of Great Social Media Measurement

If you want to evaluate the robustness and effectiveness of your approach to social media measurement, ask yourself these three fundamental questions:

• Does the approach measure the ‘right’ things in order to show the business impact of the programs and initiatives? 
• Will stakeholders of the report receive the data and actionable insights required to make strategic decisions?
• Are the data and insights presented in a clear and concise manner that tells a story and makes it easy to understand and act upon?

Measuring the ‘Right’ Things

Social media metrics are derived from three primary sources:

Ideally, a robust social media measurement program will have a rich metrics set that contains metrics from all three areas. Metrics tied to program objectives allow for direct measurement of program success. Fundamentally, measurement is about assessing performance against objectives. It is surprising how often social program objectives are slanted toward channel-specific metrics (e.g. Likes or Followers) and not the specific outcomes desired for the program – what you hope to accomplish by implementing the program. Also, relying too heavily on channel metrics limits you to what you can measure rather than what you should measure. Business outcome metrics are used to connect the dots between social media programs and the business results they are designed to drive. Social programs that cannot answer, or at least address, the management question, “How is this impacting my business”, are more susceptible to resource allocation scrutiny (#pleasecutmybudget). Stated another way, if management asks how we’re doing in social media and we reply, “great, post virality is up 6.1% this month”, we make it difficult for that individual to understand how social media/business initiatives are helping move the business forward.

Getting to Data and Insights that Inform Strategic Decisions

Expectations for social media measurement and analysis have risen. In addition to sound analysis and reporting of performance against key metrics and KPIs, understanding audience dynamics and developing actionable insights are rapidly becoming de rigueur. Insights may be defined as synthesizing and interpreting data to provide actionable information and knowledge that informs strategic decisions. Too many social media measurement programs take a social-centric rather than a business-centric approach to insights. They often feature insights and recommendations that are tactical in nature – the best time of day or how many times to tweet, or what type of content seems to be most successful. Ideally, insights and recommendations in social measurement reports would be operating one level above this, informing strategic decisions about how social programs and conversations are impacting, or could impact, the business. To do this requires an understanding of the business function (e.g. marketing, customer service) impacted by the social program and an ability to ask the right questions prior to starting a social media analysis. 

For example, let’s say Company X plans to introduce a new video game. A social listening program has been implemented to analyze the early consumer reaction to the game. Based on the listening analysis, changes to the packaging, marketing or even the product itself are possible. If you are in charge of the marketing campaign for the game, what are the types of social media insights you need to make decisions about the game and the marketing campaign?

• What is the level of buzz about the game?  What is the overall sentiment? How does this compare to previous game launches?
• What are people talking about in social media – availability, cost, specific features of the game, packaging, marketing campaign?
• What features of the game do consumers seem to like most?  Least? Specifically, what do they like or dislike?
• What are the most influential gaming enthusiasts saying about the product?
• Who are the promoters and detractors? What is the ratio of promoters to detractors? How does this compare to promoters and detractors from previous game launches?
• How much social media conversation contains recommendations or expresses purchase intent?  How does this compare to previous launches?

Answering these types of questions provides actionable insights that provide context and can inform strategic marketing decisions.          

Presenting Results

Dashboards have gotten a bit of a bad rap – not because dashboards are not useful, but because some have used them as THE measurement report rather than just one aspect of a good report. I’m a dashboard proponent for a few reasons:

• Deciding which metrics to feature on a dashboard is a good strategic exercise requiring you to focus on the very most important and relevant metrics for the intended audience
• Online, dynamic dashboards are an effective user interface that can be used as a launching- off point for drilling into data to understand the underlying story
• Good dashboards present a snapshot of overall performance that is easily absorbed and understood.   

A dashboard-driven social media measurement report is versatile and effective in many situations. A typical report might consist of one of more dashboards and then a deeper dive on each of the key metrics featured on the dashboards, along with audience insights, strategic insights and recommendations. This format provides a quick snapshot (dashboard) of results, ideal for those stakeholders interested only in topline data, and provides sufficient depth to satisfy those more interested in the underlying drivers of the metric  

Social media measurement programs that are built around metrics tied to business outcomes and show how programs are performing against objectives are important. Reports that deliver clear insights that inform strategic decisions are important. And delivering those reports in a compelling format that enhances usability and effectiveness is important. How do your programs stack up?

AVEs are a Disease – Here’s a Little Vaccine

One of the truly insidious aspects of public relations measurement is the use of advertising value equivalency (AVEs) or media value to assign financial value to public relations outputs.  It is a highly flawed, path-of-least-resistance attempt to calculate return on investment (ROI) for public relations.   To make matters worse, the practice has clearly moved into social media measurement as well.  For example, research studies that attempt to monetize the value of a Facebook Fan/Liker by attributing a CPM value from the advertising world.  Online media impact rankings also utilize equivalent paid advertising costs to assign monetary value to online news and social media.  AVE is like a disease that has infected and spread throughout the public relations industry.

In June of 2010, the PR industry came together in Barcelona to draft the Barcelona Principles, a set of seven principles of good measurement intended to provide guideposts for the industry.  The principle that has generated the most conversation is this one:

Advertising Value Equivalency (AVE) is Not the Value of Public Relations

 While many of the Measurati have been preaching against AVEs for years, there now appears to be a critical mass of outrage that may kill the practice in the coming years.  Here are four compelling reasons why I believe we must make this happen – the sooner the better.

1. AVEs Do Not  Measure Outcomes

AVEs equate an article with the appearance cost of an advertisement.  It does not speak at all to the results or impact that the article may have on a reader.  Advertisers do not judge the success of advertising on how much the insertions cost.  Imagine an advertising manager being asked by his or her boss, “How are we doing in advertising this year?”, and them replying, “Great!  We have spent $500,000 so far!  The true value of public relations or social media is not the appearance cost, but what happened as a result of the PR or social media effort – the impact it has on brand, reputation and marketing.  You will note the Barcelona Principles also call for a focus on measuring outcomes and not (just) outputs.  What happened as a result of media coverage is inherently more interesting and valuable than how much coverage was obtained.

2. AVEs Reduce Public Relations to Media Relations

You are, or become, what you measure.  AVEs do not address the impact or value of several important aspects of public relations including strategic counsel, crisis communications, grassroots efforts, viral campaigns or public affairs.  In other words, AVEs reduce PR to just the media dimension by only assigning a value in this area.  If only AVEs are used to assess PR value, the results will understate the totality of value delivered by PR.  AVEs also cannot measure the value of keeping a client with potentially negative news out of the media, yet that may be the primary objective of the PR practitioner.

3. AVEs Fly in the Face of Integrated Measurement                

Good marketing, branding and reputation campaigns have always been integrated to varying degrees.  The digitization of our lives has accelerated integration.

Advertising and PR actually work together synergistically, yet AVEs treat them as cost alternatives.  Studies have shown ads that run in a climate of positive publicity actually receive lift from the PR.  Conversely, ads run in an environment of negative publicity will likely not be successful and/or may be perceived negatively by consumers.  We have seen exposure to brand advertising increases conversion rates in social channels. Integrated campaigns and programs require integrated measurement.  AVEs don’t play well in this world.  They are analog and segregated in a digital and integrated world.

4. AVEs Provide No Diagnostic Value

Too much measurement energy is focused on score-keeping and not diagnostics.  This is one reason why single-number metrics like the Klout score and others have great appeal to many.  However, measurement is fundamentally about assessing performance against objectives with sufficient detail and granularity to determine what is working and what is not.  AVEs fail miserably in this regard.  AVE results can actually be misleading and result in false positives.  AVEs may be trending up while important metrics like message communication, share of favorable positioning and share of voice are falling.  Unfortunately, AVEs provide neither a valid single-number score nor any diagnostic value.

Some have said the Barcelona Principles are the ‘end of AVEs’.  I would agree directionally with that statement with one minor addition, Barcelona was the ‘beginning of the end of AVEs’.  Awareness of the practice and recognition of its flaws are at an all-time high in our industry.  More education and evangelism are required.  Understanding concepts like impact, tangible value, intangible value and (true) return on investment help foster much more sophisticated conversation about the total value delivered by public relations and social media.  AVEs are a disease, education and knowledge are the vaccine.  AVEs won’t die easily.  The momentum generated by the Barcelona event has provided focus and intent.  It is up to all of us to make AVEs a thing of the past.

Don’t Let the Tool Tail Wag the Measurement Dog

Social media listening and measurement tools are sexy.  Well, at least to those of us in research and measurement – it’s all relative right?  In the last three years or so there has been an explosion of social media tool vendors and platform choices.  Tools are sexy and important, but in the grand scheme of things are being overemphasized to some degree.  We are letting tools decide what we can measure without giving sufficient thought to what we should measure.  We are letting the tool tail wag the measurement dog.

There are several steps and decisions that should be addressed prior to selecting a tool or suite of tools.  Consider this diagram as a starting point to help you think through these interim considerations and decisions:

OBJECTIVES

Proper social media objectives should be measurable (indicate change in metric of interest and timeframe) and aligned with desired organizational outcomes.  Understanding the social media objectives will suggest broad parameters the measurement program, and ultimately the tool decision, must operate within.  For example, geographic coverage requirements, type of content to be considered and on-platform engagement capability may all be strongly suggested based on a review of social media objectives.

PROCESS

In addition to comprehending organizational or business outcomes, it is essential to understand the business process the social media program will address or drive.  If the program is marketing oriented, the sales funnel process (Awareness/Consideration/Preference/Sales/Loyalty) may be most appropriate.  For a brand-building campaign, the brand pyramid (Presence/Relevance/Performance/Advantage/Bonding) is what you want to measure your program impact against.  Other business processes that are commonly addressed by social media programs include customer service and support, CRM, corporate reputation and lead generation.

METRICS

Understanding the requisite business process the social media program is driving is crucial because each business process drives specific metrics.  For example, the sales funnel drives a specific metrics set:  percentage of unaided or aided awareness; percentage of the target audience who would consider the product/company; percentage who prefer the product/company; incremental sales revenues; percentage who would purchase the product again number or the number/amount of repeat purchases.  For B2B companies, the lead generation process would drive a different set of metrics: number of incoming leads; percentage/number of qualified leads; lead conversion rate; sales revenues generated.  In addition to the business process metric sets, there are other metrics areas like Exposure and Engagement we will want to address.  Reach/opportunities to see, share of positive discussion, comments/post ratio, number of @ mentions and RTs per 1000 followers are examples of ‘standard’ metrics that might be applicable for many social media programs.

Understanding how the social media program drives a specific business process is also important to our ability to describe the impact or, in some cases, return on investment the program has created.

DATA SETS

Each metric has data requirements, usually two pieces of data per metric – a numerator and a denominator.  Examine the set of metrics you have defined for your social media program.  Catalog all the specific pieces of data you need to compute the various metrics.  For example, the data needed to compute the basic sales funnel metrics and some ‘standard’ metrics might include:

• Number of individuals in the target audience
• Number of survey respondents
• Number of respondents ‘aware’ of the product/company
• Number of respondents who would consider/seriously consider purchasing the product/doing business with the company
• Number of respondents purchasing the product
• Amount of sales revenue directly attributable to the program
• Number of purchasers who purchased again
• Total branded mentions
• Volume of positive and negative mentions
• Number of posts
• Number of comments
• Number of RTs and @ mentions
• Number of followers

TOOLS

Armed with an understanding of all the data needed to calculate the metrics required to measure the social media program, you will be able to assess which tools or classes of tools best deliver the data you need.  Pick the best three to five tools for further evaluation.  You most likely will find no one tool can deliver the complete data set you need.  It is common to need two or more tools, e.g. web analytics package and social content analysis platform, in order to fully meet data requirements.  Budgetary constraints may also limit your ability to capture the entire data set required.

By addressing the interim steps leading up to tool selection, you will be able to make a more informed tool decision.  You also will have a much better chance of measuring what you should measure rather than settling for what you can measure.  No tool before its time.  Let the big dogs run.

Objective Failure

A baseline requirement for any successful public relations measurement program is to begin with measurable objectives.  If the program objectives are not measurable, any effort to determine program success becomes subjective.  The most common problem I have observed in all types of strategic plans during my career is poorly written objectives.  So why is this so difficult?  Two errors are common:

 

·         Writing objectives that are not specific enough with respect to metrics and timeframe to be measurable

 

·         Confusing Objectives with Strategies

 

An Objective is What you want to accomplish.  It should have two essential elements – the specific target you hope to achieve and the timeframe in which you plan to achieve it.  Here are a couple of examples:

 

Poorly Constructed Objectives

·         Increase awareness of product XYZ

 

·         Increase brand consideration for ABC

 

Properly Written Objectives

·         Increase awareness of Product XYZ from 15 to 25% in the next twelve months

 

·         Increase brand consideration for ABC from 45 to 75% by year-end 2007

 

 

Generally, most people’s Objectives are actually Strategies.  They are How you hope to accomplish the goal, not What you ultimately wish to accomplish with the program.  Sentences like:

 

Position product XYZ as the technology leader in the segment   or  

Enhance visibility of brand ABC amongst 24 – 35 audience  

would most likely be presented erroneously as Objectives, not Strategies.

 

Here’s an easy way to remember the difference:

 

Objective	What you want to accomplish
Strategy	How you intend to achieve the Objective
Tactic	Using or with what tools and techniques

 

 

It’s free, easy and absolutely necessary…so why don’t we do a better job of writing Objectives we can actually measure?    

 

Thanks for reading, Don B