There is more to Metrics than Views for SMBs

IMG_2568In a recent study postd by Emarketer they asked SMB professionals what metrics they used for success. Of the people surveyed, 51% said Views were the measure of success of a social campaign. While views are important they are not the end all be all of social media metrics. Your measure of success in social should tie in to your overall marketing goals.

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When I onboard a new client I try to go over exactly what their goals are in business and how we can apply them to social. You need a strategy for your social and shouldn’t go in just posting what ever. I usually explain the workings of social media as the following:

  1. Share – A Share is one of the most important things on social. It take effort to share something. This could be done on the social media site or through content you created on your own site.
  2. Comments – A comment is second in social media. It allows someone to convey, good or bad, their opinion on the post. It allows you to get an insight into what your fans have to say about you and your product/service
  3. Like –  A like is the easiest thing to do. Its a simple click of the button. Now with Facebook Reactions you can get a bit more insight into the liking. Many people just click like when they see something. While others are selective in liking. It means different things to different people.
  4. Views – A view is the amount of potential people who saw your post. Note, it’s potential, that doesn’t mean that people saw or even remember the post.

Thats the basics on social media. I find them more tools for bigger objectives. The bigger objectives are the Brand Image, Conversions, Clickthroughs and revenue generated. Each of these will depend on what your goal.

  • Brand Image – A branding campaign is to get your name out there. You want it in the consideration set when people need your product/service. You want people View and Like your post. More is a great bonus especially if it’s a share telling friends to “check out this great product/service”
  • Conversions – Conversions is a tricky term. It could be sales, email sign up, download a white paper. It could be many things. Once you have set your conversion you want to get the people to view your post and click to complete the conversion.
  • Clickthroughs – Driving traffic is one of the big things people want in social. With the curated newsfeeds this can be harder and harder to do. You need people to see, like and hopefully comment on your post. Commenting usually happens after they clicked through. The addition of call to action buttons is making this easier on Facebook.
  • Revenue Generated – This can be the hardest to contribute to social media. The easiest way is to have a social store on Facebook. You can see how well it performs. The sales funnel for social is a bit different. Depending on the product people search social, ask their friends then go directly to the site. There are no bread crumbs leading back to how they came to the decision. But that’s a whole different post. This is changing as social matures.

It’s important to find what your overall goal is in a campaign and have it match your social goals. Don’t rely just on views to gauge success. Its not the number of people who view your posts. If 1,000,000 people view your post who don’t want your product are worth way less than 2,000 of the people who need your service and are in a position to buy.

Tim is the founder of Element33. A social media agency specializing in education, management and strategy for small businesses. He comes from a traditional marketing agency but has embraced all things digital. He considers himself a marketing nerd and believes that all marketing is tied together. This means no matter what silo you are in, social, email, seach, etc, changes in one will affect the other!

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