Over the past few weeks I’ve noticed a trend on blogs that are talking about the value of social media. Also how social media management software and monitoring tools aren’t exactly what’s needed without knowing what you’re listening for. One of the key points is that we don’t know what metrics matter to what companies. Without that you can’t really tell how well your outreach is doing.
For example, Marshall of WebMetricsGuru writes:
Unless you can tell people how that campaign really impacted sales - well … why would you want to spend any money on it …
And Scott Brinker from Chief Marketing Technologist:
Metrics and monitoring are important, but what seems to be missing is software to help organizations close the loop between what’s happening in the social sphere and how to optimize their engagement in it.
Kate Brodock and I were talking about this very thing. Companies want to play with the shiny new toy but they need someone to teach them how. Monitoring plays a big role and you want to listen to what others are saying. There is value in listening and responding in a way that connects with your customers or users.
It’s often enough that social media marketers and PR firms are pondering which metrics matter and how to create a campaign that works for the company specifically based on what’s important to them (site visits, WOM, purchases, and so on).
Once you do know what’s important you can start listening by using management tools, like Vibemetrix. It can track your blogger outreach and comments in one place for everyone instead of having the information spread in various places like Google Spreadsheets, etc. Knowing where the conversation is taking place and making sure that everyone is on the same page about what’s being said and the responses given.
Our goal is to help people get the most out of listening and participating in relationship building.
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Hi, Chel — thanks for the nod to my blog post on social media management.
A speedometer is a classic “metric” (how fast are we going?). Issues such as where we’re headed, what other vehicles are on the road with us, and is that police car with the flashing lights coming after me for my metric being too high — those are management questions.
I agree with you that actively discussing which metrics are important and why is a good thing — because that shifts the focus to the purpose/reasoning of the metrics. Good stuff.
Listening is clearly the heart of social media marketing, and leveraging tools such as yours to facilitate that makes great sense. Figuring out how to manage listening — and responding — at scale still seems like a formidable challenge. But I’m excited to see how the tools and processes continue to evolve at that level.