This week I attended The Internet Show in Melbourne and presented at Social Media World on Measuring Social Media Success.
My presentation went through a few subjects close to my heart; firstly that thanks to the wealth of information provided by data merchants Facebook and Google, we find ourselves with an overload of data. It's up to us to be critical about how (and even if) we use that data and putting some context behind the numbers.
I also talked about using the data to fuel adaptive marketing instead of the "set and forget" mentality. With real-time analytics (and let's face it, even with a 48-72 hour delay) we can use insights to run better creative, test calls to action and, as Jesse Desjardins shared in his talk on Tourism Australia's approach to advocacy, can even hint at which imagery will provoke the best response from your audience.
I talked about looking outside of the product category when looking to benchmark success. Tactics vary from company to company and it may be worth comparing your activity to a brand with a similar social objective as well as the standard competitor analysis.
One of my big pain points at the moment is the confusion of tactical objectives and strategic objectives. A good performing Facebook page is important to achieve a good Edgerank, the algorithm that determines the priority and frequency of your updates to your fans in their news feed. This has given false importance to "like-baiting"; fluffy messages of "Happy Friday!" and discussions about the weekend are getting interactions that are being measured with equal importance as key brand or campaign messaging. If you feel you need to like-bait to maintain a good page, at least have the decency to report on the effectiveness of actual marketing messages separately.
You can view my presentation here or if you view it on Slideshare you can check out the notes that accompany each slide for some more context.
Let me know your thoughts!
Tagged: adaptive marketing, data merchants, Facebook, how do you measure social media, measuring social media, Radian6, social media measurement, social media roi, social media success, The Internet Show, twitter