I clearly remember a certain National Championship football game that my favorite college team was playing in January 2003. There was a bad call that is still hotly contested among fans to this day. Here is the strange part: the "bad call" in question changes depending on whom you are talking to. A Miami fan will rant about a blown Pass Interference call in OT that sealed the game for The Ohio State Buckeyes. A Buckeyes fan will say the "bad call" was a different (missed) Pass Interference call in the 4th quarter that even allowed the game to go into overtime.
The point is this: The final score tells us for the rest of history who the 2002 National Champions are. But it doesn't tell us HOW they won. The raw stats give some insight, but there is little direction achieved from a box score. It isn't until we combine the stats with observed specific outcomes that we arrive at the actionable data that fuels the flames of fandom.
It is not unlike your social efforts. It is pretty easy to determine a win (unless you are just not keeping score at all, which would be a wholly separate post). It is even pretty easy to pull some basic reports off web and social analytics to get some raw stats. But at the end of the game (or campaign), most marketers are stuck with numbers that don't mean much to them, and they are left wanting (as are their bosses).
This is where solid fundamental metrics come in. Let's clarify what that is: Solid fundamental metric analysis means that you know what your goals are and how you are going to play for a win BEFORE you go live. It is much like the "Keys to the Game" the commentators discuss before the teams take the field. Each team knows what they must do to win a specific game before the contest, thanks to film analysis and prior experience. They practice those things all week. The go to the game knowing how they will measure their success on game day: Did we do the things we set out to do to win this game?
Your strategy might be to drive foot traffic from social shopping or increase brand affinity via stronger community or any other number of other things. You know what you need to do to win based on your business objectives. When building the tactics around that strategy, you must select the metrics that tie those tactics to the outcomes that deliver business value (results). Here are some examples from a list of 200+ metrics that I have on hand:
Random Example CTA Metrics:
· Registrations from third-party social logins (e.g., Facebook Connect, Twitter OAuth)
· Registrations by channel (e.g., Web, desktop application, mobile application, SMS, etc.)
· Impact on offline sales
· Discount redemption rate
· Impact on other offline behavior (e.g., TV tune-in)
· Earned media's impact on results from paid media
· Responses to socially posted events
· Attendance generated at in-person events
There is no "magic metric." It is the process of combining the right questions and collecting the right data. Without the right metrics, you are left with a win/lose situation that gives no insight into performance or how to be more successful with your efforts. So unless you are blessed with the social media equivalent of the Midas touch, the right metrics are your keys to winning early and often. This means knowing conversion rates by channel, what content is actionable, where users come from and go to, and so much more to increase desired behaviors.
The comments section is yours. Please leave your thoughts as well as any questions around metrics and strategy that you would like to see addressed in a future post. We are all about helping brands become social, and using social strategies to tackle real business issues.