What cannot be measured cannot be improved- Using Social media analytics for effective ROI

As the saying goes, “What cannot be measured cannot be improved “. Measuring the success & ROI for any marketing campaign or channel used is critical especially in the new business environment where the marketer has higher responsibility for every penny spent. This situation gets all the more complex when it comes to studying the impact and results of social media marketing as the the traditional measurement strategies don’t hold good here.

 Fundamentally this calls for a clear mindset change before we even start considering metrics and their analysis. Social media is not about lead generation and sales conversions. We need to understand that what we are trying to achieve is more long-term – it is about building conversations around our brand and relationships with our customers. As such, the exercise tends to be more qualitative than otherwise.

 Before developing a social media strategy, first establish specific objectives. This will help you in defining the roadmap and the tools that you will use, as well as the metrics that you need to track. What you choose to measure will depend on your goals.

 Metrics are easier to establish if they are business-driven. And as objectives can be qualitative or quantitative in nature, so also can metrics.

 Some of the quantitative metrics that you can track using traditional website analytics tools include visitors and traffic sources, number of followers, fans and members, changes in the follower count, number of retweets, etc. This will give you a direct indication of how your social media program is affecting the world around your brand. Equally important are metrics based on search engine rank and lead generation. You can also use standard digital measurement tools to track the number of people who click through to buy or register from your social media assets / sites.

 But the importance of social media really lies in the qualitative experience that you build around your brand. Hence start asking yourself: was I able to build a better relationship with my audience? Did I convert any detractors into supporters and passive audience into more engaged actors? In short, you need to measure the change in interest level and conversations happening around your brand. Study trends – what people are saying about the brand now versus what they were saying before you started. Have you been able to influence perceptions? Also analyze the kind of relationship that you have built with influential bloggers and Twitterers. Measuring progress towards your social media objectives will give you a good idea of how much impact your campaigns have had.

 There are already some good social media measurement tools available on the market today – Google Analytics, Omniture, TweetMeme Analytics – and more become available each day as the importance of measuring ROI in social media is recognized. Some social media tools come with their own measurement tools such as Facebook’s Insights.

 But what is essential to remember once you have all the data at your disposal, is to make it usable and actionable – use the data to inform your decision-making and to further your social media initiatives.

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