Keys to Social Media Analytics Success

   Social media analytics is very important in that it helps corporate marketers accurately evaluate the performance of all social media marketing activities. Following are some important criteria to consider when assessing your performance:)

 

1. Attribute relative credit to social media investments for influencing customer acquisition, persuasion, and conversion

   Traditionally, corporate marketers adopted the "last-click attribution system," which means that visitors came from right before they converted was all that mattered. Corporate marketers evaluated their performance according to this attribution model and allotted money accordingly. However, this model had its own limitation and thus corporate marketers became aware that they should adopt new method to truly reflect their performance. They came to realize that customers do not simply visit a single website. Customers must be exposed to various channels before conversion takes place. Thus, corporate marketers need to attribute relative credit to social media investments for influencing customer acquisition, persuasion, and conversion.

 

2. Compare the direct traffic generated by social media to direct traffic from campaigns of mainstream online channels

   Corporate marketers do not only use social media to advertise their products and communicate with their customers. Social media is simply just one of those tools, but yet is gaining quite a huge popularity. Thus, corporate marketers should also be keen on how well other channels are performing on web. Traditionally, click rates were most valued. Yet, there are othe important factors to take into consideration such as page views, sales or conversion. Wise corporate marketers should be able to allocate right amount of money after comparing these results.

 

3. Understand the total impact that social media investment have on business from both direct traffic and indirect traffic perspectives

   As I reiterated, the number of clicks is not all that matters. There are two types of traffic: direct traffic and indirect traffic. Direct traffic is measured by how many people clicked through while indirect traffic is measured by how many peopl viewed through. Thus, it is necessary to take "indirect traffic" factor into consideration while assessing the efficaciousness of social media investments. It is also important to realize that customers do not visit social network channels to see campaigns or advertisements posted by many enterprises. Customers primarily visit there to chat with their friends and share their experiences and thoughts. They just happen to come across those social network marketing while engaging themselves with friend-networking activities.

 

4. Compare the view-through/click-through performance of social networking websites against other impression-based campaigns such as syndicated videos, blogs, microsites and display advertisements

   As I mentioned in the last night's article, syndicated videos are now enjoying its heyday for they are really effective at engraving powerful impression on customers' minds. Blogs, although is one of the oldest social networking channels, are still playing their roles as an effective marketing tool. Thus, it is really important to compare the view-through/click through performance of social networking websites to other channels. Good corporate marketers, based on collected date, make wise investment decisions.