by Stephanie Miller, VP, Market Development, Return Path, Inc. -

It’s hard to measure social media.  It’s sometimes fish, sometimes fowl, sometimes neither at all.  So I was delighted to be leading the session on measurement for DigiDay Social earlier this month.  The panelists were an impressive mix from various perspectives – Michael Burke, Founder and President, appssavvy; Dr. Augustine Fou, Digital Strategy Lead, Marketing Science Consulting Group; Jon Gibs, VP of Insights, Nielsen Online; Cynthia Francis, CEO, Reality Digital; and T.S. Kelly, VP Media Research, Quantcast. 

 Social media as we know it today is about the Web making conversations more efficient.  Yet, how does one measure the impact of a conversation?   What do we measure? How do we track it efficiently?   If I spend a dollar, I want more than a dollar back on my investment. Otherwise, I’m out of business – or out of a job!  This is complicated further by the fact that the people formerly known as the “audience” are now active participants, and in many ways, in charge.  

Most of us agree that there are two primary ways to track consumers’ and business professionals’ social interactions with brands:  influence and engagement.  Conceptually, this makes sense, right?  To be authentic, we must engage at the customer level.  The result is a communal benefit – genuine and mutual concern with no expectations.  Yet, we are marketers – and we are measured on sales and revenue and very real and tangible outcomes, rather than the mere existence of a conversation.

The panel agreed that every marketer must define measure as Relationships, Analytics and Outcomes.  Dr. Fou talked about the linguistics involved – that calling it “social media” sets an expectation that our investment can and should be measured like advertising, with a  traceable ROI.   Certainly the social networks like Facebook and MySpace are scrambling to improve how their reporting and analysis fits with media buyer expectations and needs. However, if we call it “social marketing” then we can start to measure things around impact and influence and engagement.  Some of these might include:

1     The number of conversations via Twitter, networks like Facebook, MySpace, Linked In and others, comments on blogs (our own or others), product reviews, etc.

2.    The relevancy of those conversations to the corporate brand and positioning. Are they talking about the campaign? About how the product delighted them? Or about how no one called them back?

3.     The change (hopefully a spike) in key business drivers (e.g.: website traffic, retail traffic, sales, downloads or keyword searches) before, during and after a social marketing campaign.   This is akin to watching your site traffic double on the days that you send out an email message.

4.     The number of “forwards” and the size of the networks that influencers in our audience reach.

Jon Gibs discussed the importance of “isolating the signal” of the conversation. Sorting out the important messages from the din.  He encourages thinking about social media as a program not an advertisement. 

There are multiple inputs and outputs, and tracking these over time is critical to understanding the impact of your efforts – or the brand value assigned by your actual audience.  While it’s valuable  to pay a lot for pre- post research studies from Nielsen or others, Jon also talked about some of the free or inexpensive options like Google Analytics, BuzzLogic or BuzzMetrics (also owned by Nielsen).

T.S. Kelly of Quantcast notes that numbers are not the measure, influence is the measure.  So when  you are assigning dollars to social marketing, apply it to the areas of highest influence.  Consider too, he suggests, the amplification that social marketing can give your existing advertising spend.

So a Facebook page or Twitter or blog may not on its own be driving new influence, but these are destinations for discussion or debate or happy sharing of the various campaigns that you push out via email and advertising.  Take advantage of that.  Dr. Fou notes that social marketing is like advertising you don’t have to pay for each time it runs – that amplification in action.

An expert in monetizing investments made in social media applications, Michael Burke of appsavvy suggests that there is value in momentum.  There is a real opportunity costs for not being active in social media today.    Focus on audience, not property, he says.  If your idea is good, it will have legs. 

None of this is to suggest that marketers don’t need specific goals and strategies that link firmly back to key business indicators (KPI).  Be sure to line up your social marketing with other marketing activities, and do nothing in isolation.  Rather than trying to control the conversation, think in terms of stimulating that conversation – which is happening anyway, whether you participate or not. 

When I asked for final thoughts, the panel said, completely without irony, “Have courage.”   Which, more than anything else reminds us that no one else has quite figured this out yet – so stay flexible, be inventive and push yourself and your company into the conversation.

We created a checklist that includes some good advice and a number of free and other tools to help you. Download it here. If you were there, please comment below with your thoughts on the panel discussion. Or on this summary.

Stephanie is a customer advocate, and an expert in creating amazing email subscriber experiences that reach the inbox, drive revenue and build brands. Using her 20+ years of direct marketing and publishing experience, she helps online publishers and marketers optimize their email channel experience and revenue, starting with inbox deliverability. Email Stephanie at: stephanie.miller@returnpath.net