Measurement. It is how you address the sate of your progress towards your goals. It helps you discover new opportunities and weaknesses you may not be aware of. In sports the ultimate measurement is the scoreboard at the end of the match. In social media… the measurement is more than just followers and fans. Measurement in social media is what you define it to be.
Alice – Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?
Chesire Cat – That depends a good deal on where you want to get to.
Alice – I don’t care much where
Chesire Cat – Then it doesn’t matter which way you go.
– Alice In Wonderland
What You Measure Matters
If you have developed a plan for your social media effort then you have identified metrics you are going to measure. (If you haven’t done this then you better reevaluate your social media plan!) These metrics can be new fans/followers, depth of conversations, new leads, response times, and possibly even new sales. Whatever your metrics are you need to measure them against your investment of resources and time.
What you measure matters as it is where the focus of your efforts are during your social media campaign. It is that old adage of “inspect what you expect.” If what you are measuring is not acceptable or working, there is nothing wrong with making changes. As you do meet your goals, your metrics will change and they should.
A man’s friendships are one of the best measures of his worth. – Charles Darwin
Pros and Cons of Different Metrics
When building your social media plan you have most likely identified what success looks like. Perhaps it is something like this: Your business is rolling in business from all the hits your website gets, and these visits start from the success of your Facebook fan page and tweets. Nice story right? What are you going to measure to get there?
There are a number of different metrics for social media, and currently there is not really a gold standard. That will change with the expansion of use of social media by different businesses. Remember that what you measure matters.
Fans & Followers. This is the easiest metric to measure. You need fans, friends, subscribers, and followers to allow your social media campaign to have any effect at all. How fast you grow this list is a direct measure to the strength of your brand, the quality of your content, and the sincerity of your interaction. The feedback on your efforts is instant. This metric is dynamic and will always be changing. Another thing to keep in mind is that popularity does not translate into business. If you are collecting fans/followers like baseball cards then you are not valuing the real benefits of social media: conversation.
Depth of Conversation. Here is a startling statistic for you to ponder: 99% of all tweets and posts do not get a single interaction. (Data from Yahoo R&D Labs.) This means that no one forwards them through re-tweets, responds to the information offered, or comments on what has been sent. This could be due to the volume of information being created on a minute-by-minute basis or that most posts lack quality.
Independent of what your goals are for your social media campaign, this metric is one of the most important you want to measure. It is also the most difficult. Why? Well, what is the definition for “Depth of Conversation”? Is it duration of interaction? Is it how many times it gets forwarded and re-tweeted? Is it the driving force behind a purchase? The answer is it can be one or all of these things. You need to decide what “Depth of Conversation” means for you and your business.
New Leads/Sales. According to Dell, they made over $7 million in sales using Twitter. Special deals and offers were extended only to their followers and those that had received re-tweets. Yet direct sales from twitter and other platforms seem to be the exception instead of the norm. Development of new leads and business relationships tends to be the result of social media campaigns. Measurement of these two metrics is fairly straightforward.
You can measure opportunity with the same yardstick that measures the risk involved. They go together. – Earl Nightingale
Right now the rules are being written on how to measure effect, investment, and impact of using social media. If you are not measuring then you better start now! Otherwise you are just grasping in the dark and that type of effort is usually wasted effort.
Additional Resources On Measurement
Impact of blogs for businesses
How To Track Social Media: Analytics
Measurement And Analysis of Social Media
How do you measure your social media impact?
Erroin A. Martin 
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