Mark Twain popularized the saying, "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics" when he included it in Chapters from My Autobiography. If he were alive today, I'm confident that he would add social media metrics to the list. It might even be first.
Manipulating numbers to support weak arguments is a common practice. The process is simple. All you have to do is gather information that supports your point, hide the data that doesn't, and present it to an unsuspecting audience. It isn't unusual for marketers to hedge on the numbers a bit to get more funding or keep a campaign going. But, the new math coming out of social media goes beyond hedging into blatant misrepresentation.
The only real numbers that matter to your company are the ones generated from your marketing activities. Most people know this but it is very easy to get caught up in what could be instead of focusing on the reality surrounding them. Social media is filled with possibilities to tempt even the most focused marketer:
Influencers - Having more followers and fans than the population of a small country, while impressive, isn't influential because the connection is too easy. It's a one click relationship. The people that follow or fan aren't invested in the individual or company and won't be influenced by them beyond clicking the occasional link.
Impressions - Social media impressions are defined by multiplying the number of tweets or postings by the number of followers. For example, if I tweet the same link two times, I created ~ 25,000 impressions. If other people decide to share it, the number increases exponentially. The critical flaw in this math is the presumption that every tweet is read by 100% of the followers. Most won't see it, much less read it.
Followers and Fans - Social media celebrities aren't really famous, they just look that way because of the thousands of followers and fans. These numbers are very misleading because 30-60% of the communities are inactive. The remaining 40-70% may or may not be reading the content. Gaming the system creates the appearance of large communities without providing any value.
Comments - Content that generates comments motivates people to speak, not buy. It tends to be controversial or outrageous. Corporate blogs should tell the company's story, not create tension and discourse. Happy people are more likely to spend money. Instead of counting comments, watch traffic metrics and behavior so you'll know the best ways to move people from reading to buying.
Click-through Rates - The clicks counted by the social media tools vary significantly from the information provided by website analytic services. Data we've reviewed for our clients have shown social media clicks three to five times the website analytics count. At first, we thought that the analytics software wasn't logging incoming links correctly. But when we reviewed individual days, we found that huge spikes in the social media clicks rarely show a bump in website traffic.
When the numbers are put together they create a false sense of opportunity without limits. It only takes a little imagination to start extrapolating sales from impressions. After all, direct marketing typically pulls 0.5-1.5% from a prospecting campaign. Why shouldn't a social media message generate a similar response?
The answer is simple. Direct marketing prospects are pre-qualified before being included in the campaign. Extensive effort is made to find the people most likely to buy. There's very little qualification required for membership in social media communities.
The numbers that matter from social media participation are sales, costs, and satisfaction. If sales don't increase, costs decrease, and/or satisfaction improves, your online activity is a waste of time. Staying focused on the right numbers keeps the new math from getting in the way of your company's growth and profitability. Social media is a great channel for connecting with customers and improving relationships. It is an expensive and ineffective way to prospect. The next time someone tries to influence you with the new math, ask them to show you the path from the social media metrics to the money.