Methodology and Psychology in tracking success using Social Media
Social Media is all about conversation and responses. Users are enticed to converse with the brand via comments and posts through media such as video, image, blogs, audio and text. Social gatherings online give brands a voice and a platform to hear and be heard by the marketplace. This does of course raise other concerns such as how to moderate and tonality. Once Geo targeting and location based search enters the arena we will have yet more methods of communication and issues to deal with.
When creating Social conversations we are asking for responses from an audience. Response means any response at all and through any channel. Comments, followers or posts can come from any source and these must be monitored. The quality of the response should matter and it should follow the brand guidelines for tonality and media. However, if people are just stopping by and not commenting the conversation is not social and probably is just a broadcasted advert. Unless an actual conversation is started the campaign will have no hope of going viral and achieving more references and comments to push the conversation forward.
Obtaining ‘Likes’, ‘Fans’, ‘thanks’, ‘re-tweets’ and ‘diggs’ are an indication that the campaign is working well, but they do not help to build a conversation with the audience. It is more beneficial to create conversation where users can leave comments than to just make a post and hope that users will respond. The Brand or Website should add to the conversation and help steer the conversation. This can be done by asking questions or requesting opinions. Anything that will encourage further discussion and push the conversation is valid and should be considered.
The feedback and interest in media and conversations will give direction to more effective targeting of users. Should you be shooting in the wrong direction careful analysis of conversations and interest through watching trending topics will help to re-align messaging. This will also ensure that your followers are the ones you want and not just random individuals who are not interested in your product.
Your competition and their customers will also be interested in what you have to say. If presented in a professional and impartial manner thousands of other people in interest groups similar to yours will also be interested and interact with your brand.
In all social gatherings there are experts or central figures that can be contacted. These people could be moderators, admins or experts that others come to for knowledge. A successful Social broadcaster should be able to measure the weekly increase in people that join its network and interact with broadcasts and that treat the broadcaster as an expert.
Measuring negative feedback is not pleasant but in the social space it is unavoidable. Key considerations are to look for the measurable and categorize it based on impact. If there are too many negative comments it may offer the chance to rethink messaging and deployment.
The real key considerations are to measure goals and track traffic sources and conversions. The funnel may not be the sexiest method of reporting but it is clear and efficient. As long as the social media sources and links are tracked and the traffic from these sources is monitored we can estimate the conversion potential of Social media traffic and also more importantly the brand health gained via Social media.
More great reading on testing and measurement can be found with the guys from SEO book here
