EVER SINCE LEAVING REBOOT 9 (and the image at left), I've thought about ways to measure the electronic social interactions that form part of life. I approach social media from a technology side, trusting my choice of tools and networks to connect me automagically. Sometimes my perspective puts me at odds with purists who would claim that I could not possible have a meaningful relationship with my technological world, since elements in that world speak machine language. They often reconsider their criticism when I point to the loving caresses they reserve for their iPhones. And I also point out my decades-long relationship with aviation and automotive power plants. Those things talk to me and through their belching resonance, I have made enduring friendships.
Measuring the reach and effectiveness of social media is important. Michael Brito's metrics involve tracking the standard things such as unique visitors, the time they spend on a site (or a specific page), whether they return to engage as a reader, and how these visitors convert to a desired outcome.
Chris Brogan's list is more specific, leading with "actions taken" and then including things like inbound links generated, satisfaction index improving, customer service calls decreasing, mainstream media coverage gained, and subscribers increased.
In my mind, you can set clear and well-defined outcomes that can be measured with several tools. These measurements need not be proprietary but if invoked, the campaign running the tools need to understand their limitations and methods of interpretation. We're headed to an Irish conference on new media and new audiences, hoping to hear at least one speaker address the effective measurements used when monitoring social media.
Michael Brito -- "Measuring Social Media Optimization"
Chris Brogan -- "Measuring Social Media Efforts"
Previously -- "Bashing Blogs"
