- Okay, so we have become passionate about social media and, most importantly, we monitor Facebook, Twitter and so on – now what?You monitor social media but are your metrics really telling you about how much influence you have on the conversation?
Find out – read on we tell you the story.
Whilst attending the social media influence conference in London Wednesday 2008-06-04 I took some notes I would like to share with you here. I began with this post:
SMIuk08 Conference – should you ban Facebook?
Some of the afternoon speakers and panel participants were pointing out that we must harness social media. Hence, learning about listening is required in order to influence the brand. This sounds good, nevertheless, should we maybe get a bit more practical?
Here are some of the comments we found on Twitter:
joannejacobs: Nielsen session next. Probably most interested in his sense of how buzzmetrics needs to alter. #SMIuk08
SMIuk08: Harness social media, learn through listening, influence the brand, respond appropriately – sounds good, in practice this means? #SMIuk08
ComMetrics: @SMIuk08the power of video .. every single product of yours should have a demo video, great I am an accountant, does this work for me #SMIuk08
After lunch break, we attended a panel entitled: Measuring Influence and Audience
When listening to the panel I got a few pointers, such as this comment from Flemming Madsen:
- Metrics should
– predict something, AND
– be used for a decision
Hence, unless it meets the above two criteria, your Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and metrics used might be a futile exercise. Much work little effect upon how things work around here when it comes to social media.
Kris Hoet pointed out that:
- We may be unable to measure something, however:
– let us start doing it
– try to measure once it is in progress
I followed up with Kris on this and he used the example of a bunch of experts trying to figure out the perfect metrics about the water in the pool. Maybe a simpler approach might be putting one’s toe in the water. This should tell you if the water is too hot, too cold for a swim, or just perfect. Thereafter, if you discover that the temperature suits you, you will go for a swim. Once done, you may want to check out the water slide another swimmer recommended highly.
Bottom Line
Reflecting on the content presented during the later morning and early afternoon at #SMIuk08, I benefited from experts sharing what they do and how things work for them.
Unfortunately, presenters and discussants focused primarily on consumer products. In turn, how to apply some of these suggestions and ideas to non-consumer products such as medical equipment remains a bit of a mystery to me.
As well, the focus was on global brands. This meant the unique opportunity social media offers SMEs was not discussed much if at all.
Finally, if we leave metrics to the social media folks, we might end up with a ‘standard’ that is not necessarily very useful as we have seen with TV advertising where we focus on reach, etc.
What we need is more principle-based standards and not rule-based ones. In other words, substance over form – does it make sense versus ticking off boxes. This issue is one that accountants have been struggling with for some time until moving toward the right direction.
Therefore, we had better come up with more effective solutions than just measuring popularity and crowd scoring. For a c-suite blogger, traffic is the least of her worries. However, reaching the targeted audience with content subscribers find useful is the key on the road to success, is it not?
Stay tuned, more reflections coming your way, also see links below.
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| My.ComMetrics | ranking your social media efforts |
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For finding out what else delegates shared on Twitter during this one-day event, check here:
tracking Social Media Influence Conference on Twitter
Sign up for the Twitter 2009 conference feed (hashtag to be used will be #SMIuk09) right now here:
following SMIuk09 on Twitter – 08 success to be repeated with 2009 event – be there
You may also want to look at this Wiki:
Chris_Reed: meant to send this round earlier to people at #SMIuk08 – wiki for establishing standards to measure social media http://tinyurl.com/5zuykm
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