Insights Contributor

Social media metrics mistakes

By Insights Contributor on December 29, 2009 | 12 Comments

Over on the SmartBlog on Social Media, we are featuring a conversation with Olivier Blanchard, who is a brand strategist with 15 years of marketing management experience across a variety of B2B and B2C industries. Much of the discussion should resonate with the .org community, especially on the metrics side.

What are the three most common mistakes you see companies make when attempting to measure the impact or value of their social media efforts?

– Focusing too much on digital measurement. Sure, social media seems to live in the digital space, but digital is just the medium. The relationships, the engagement, the consumer behaviors, these things exist in the real world as well (and probably more so). Measuring the impact of social media programs only in terms of digital outcomes like Web traffic and the number of followers is pretty short-sighted and ineffective.

– Not understanding the difference between nonfinancial impact and financial impact. Nonfinancial impact is a precursor to ROI. For example, 1,000 net new daily visitors to a Web site attributed to Facebook fans is of immense value to the digital team, but unless these new visitors transact as a result of their visit (or their recommendations result in a transaction), the value of that traffic is limited (and irrelevant to the sales manager). So the difference between the value of a program and the financial value of a program are often not clearly delineated within an organization. This lack of understanding is still a major problem standing in the way of seasoned business executives taking social media seriously as a legitimate and powerful business development tool.

– Not establishing clear goals and objectives when launching a social media program. “Engagement,” “increasing brand awareness” and “having more conversations” are not real objectives. (A real objective is both specific and quantifiable.) “Soft goals” create soft strategies. Soft strategies turn into weak tactics. Weak tactics turn into bogus metrics. The more specific the goals, the more likely it is that organizations will see real (and quantifiable) results every month, quarter and beyond. Companies that don’t understand this are playing “pinning the tail on the donkey” with social media. This is one of the biggest reasons why so many social media programs seem to go nowhere.

For more, read the complete interview.

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