Applying Science to Social Media: Analytics 101

These days, the importance of using social media to connect with customers goes almost without saying. And with a variety of channels to choose from that offer direct access to millions of people at no cost, what’s not to like? Well, for one thing, there’s the issue of measurability. While the barriers to entry are next to none, how can you assess your company’s performance in engaging with all those existing and potential customers? After all, social media doesn’t conform to any of the familiar metrics that we’ve used to evaluate traditional mediums for decades. You can’t sum up your interactions on Facebook or Twitter in terms of rating points or share. Furthermore, what constitutes a good result for one company may not apply for another. What if yours is a service-based business rather than one that sells tangible consumer goods? Or what if you’re charged with managing social media for a ministry or nonprofit? Your standards for success will likely be completely different than those of a for-profit entity. The good news is that there are many tools available to help you gauge the overall health of your Facebook Pages and Twitter accounts. Even if your company doesn’t have the funds or the manpower to devote to managing your social media presence full-time, there are no-cost and low-cost options available to help you wrangle the ambiguous concept of engagement into quantifiable figures.

Free solutions

Let’s start with Facebook. The good folks at Facebook offer very helpful performance metrics via their aptly-named Insights feature, but trying to process this data can be like drinking from a fire hose (and one that changes fairly often) unless you know how to filter what you need from what you don’t. Here are a couple of simple calculations that you can perform to distill this raw data into meaningful information. At any given point in time, you can gauge the basic level of engagement on your Page by dividing the number of Monthly Active Users by the total number of Lifetime Likes. Multiply that figure by 100, and you’ve got the percentage of your fanbase that has interacted with your content in some form or fashion during the past month. Because Insights information is kept private and made available only to a Page’s designated administrators, there aren’t any industry benchmarks against which you can rate how your performance stacks up. However, what you can and should do instead is track your own figures over the course of several months. Is your engagement percentage dropping? Climbing? Holding steady? Keeping an eye on these trends will help you establish benchmarks for your own company and give you a feel for the types of tactics and campaigns that get the greatest response. Beyond that, you can determine whether your content is connecting with users or turning them away by comparing Total Likes to Total Unsubscribes. Divide Total Unsubscribes by Total Likes, then multiply by 100, and you’ll find the percentage of people who’ve left your page. Obviously, the goal here is to achieve as low a percentage as possible. Some unsubscribes are inevitable, but hopefully you’ll be looking at single digits. If your percentage is greater than 10, it’s time to scrutinize your content strategy to see what might be driving people away. What about Twitter? Their native platform is notoriously difficult for data analysis, but fortunately, there are a plethora of third-party toolsets that use Twitter’s API to crank out stats for your account. HootSuite is the platform of choice for many social media managers, largely because in terms of ease of use, they’re hard to beat. Once you get acquainted with the interface, it’s pretty easy to get a snapshot of who’s retweeting your content, who’s talking about you, and who’s asking questions that need your attention. You can either monitor this activity manually or set up reports to be automatically generated to give you a global view of the health of your Twitter presence. And did I mention that their Basic plan is free for up to five social profiles?

Almost-free options

What if you need more flexibility and data-filtering power than the free version of HootSuite offers? Then you might want to check out their Pro plan. A minimal investment of $5.99 per month will get you access to advanced reporting tools that will help you monitor sentiment and track social reach as well as the ability to add an unlimited number of social profiles. TwentyFeet also provides some promising tools at a very low cost, although they’re a much newer company without a proven track record established as of yet. However, unlike HootSuite, they offer tracking for YouTube (along with Twitter and Facebook). You can track one Twitter account and one Facebook user profile (not Page) free of charge, or you can add additional profiles for $2.49 per profile per year. Yep, that’s per YEAR, not per month. That’s a pretty incredible rate for the types of monitoring services they offer. The primary benefit of going the paid route with companies like HootSuite and TwentyFeet is the reporting option. If yours is a smaller company with limited resources, it’s much more efficient to be able to pull reports on demand rather than having to spend a lot of your own time crunching the numbers to gauge your performance.

Better information, better decisions

While this is by no means an exhaustive evaluation of all the available services that can help you track social media metrics, these solid, highly affordable options offer enough data to give you a clear view of your engagement across various platforms. Dive in today, and discover the difference that the insights you glean from these toolsets can make in your ability to guide and direct your company’s social media initiatives.

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The Gathering: Social Marketing, Old School

The brave new world of Web 2.0 offers a wide array of platforms that allow businesses to connect virtually with the people who want what they’ve got. But long before the advent of the Social Web – before anyone had ever heard of Twitter, Meetup, Craigslist or Facebook – social marketing flourished. From Tupperware parties to trade shows, whether in living rooms or convention halls across America, people came together in gatherings to connect with products, sellers and other customers like themselves all at once. And while today’s culture of hyper-connectivity has dealt much of traditional marketing a fatal blow, the gathering has stood the test of time. In fact, social technology has given new life to the gathering. No longer confined to fixed time slots or venues, the content and conversations of events now live on in perpetuity through social media, event-specific websites and online video. It’s important to make sure that gatherings have a place in your marketing arsenal.This relationship works in the other direction as well. As communities form around common interests on the Web, real-world gatherings are a natural extension of members’ online interactions. Like a handwritten note in the age of e-mail, the face-to-face connection has become a rarefied, premium experience in a time when virtual connectivity is always only a finger-swipe away. For these reasons, it’s important to make sure that gatherings have a place in your marketing arsenal and that you’re investing time in engaging with your tribe of followers offline as well as online.

"Ideas worth spreading"

A recent gathering I attended began like a bad joke: an artist, an engineer and a socialite walk into an auditorium. This time, however, there was no punch line. Instead, I was participating in a TED event, and the room was electric with the pre-show buzz of right and left brains, liberals and conservatives, vegans and slow-food carnivores wearing “I ♥ Meat” t-shirts. For decades the famed TEDTalks have brought together artists, angel investors, designers, doctorates, engineers, entrepreneurs, communicators and community leaders, all in pursuit of one common passion: “ideas worth spreading.” With its famously short talks (25 minutes or less), TED is a petri dish for innovation, and most followers would sever their right arm to attend the invitation-only conference in Long Beach, California. Historically, the group met in druid-like seclusion. But with the ascension of new leadership came a new vision: world-changing ideas should actually be shared with the world. The arrival of online video gave TED a second, virtual life, and in the early 2000s, TED.com began offering free access to full-length videos of its proceedings. For years, TEDophiles like myself have gobbled up this content online while dreaming of experiencing it in person. Fortunately for us, the masterminds behind TED realized that ordinary people everywhere have ideas that could change the world, or at least their local communities. So in 2009, TEDx Events were born, with TED lending its name, brand collateral and mission to independently planned and executed local gatherings. In December 2010 alone, 165 TEDx Events were held in 54 countries. I myself became an official TEDster on September 24 at the inaugural TEDxCharlotte, right in my hometown. A dream came true as I sat with hippies and hipsters for one glorious day of ideas worth spreading. As TEDizens like me have discovered, it is the gathering itself that is the holy grail, not just the content and information. The conversations and connections that can be sparked when people meet and share experiences in the real world are deeper and longer-lasting than those that are confined to tweets, Facebook wall posts or even forum message boards.

Gathering your tribe

TED is a shining example of the value of creating opportunities for people to meet and interact with others who share their interests. Identify the commonalities that unite your tribe.However, you don’t need their massive, worldwide following to harness the power of the gathering to grow your business. You just need to identify the commonalities that unite your tribe and orchestrate an event that taps into their shared passions and provides an outlet for engagement. Remember that those who would make the effort to spend time and energy with you are your champions. They are people who believe in – or at least are interested in – your product, service or company enough to bother. You don’t have to dazzle them. But you do have to show up, make authentic connections and give them something of value for their effort. The end result? They will love and trust you more. In order to ensure the success of your gathering, here are some key points to keep in mind:

Bigger isn’t necessarily better

Often, the slicker and more carefully controlled the interaction, the less special the event can feel. Instead, just keep it simple. Invite a handful of your best customers or, if the invitation is open to all, limit registration. This will foster an atmosphere of intimacy and privilege for those in attendance. Most importantly, don’t use the event as a ruse to assemble your followers for a sales pitch. Be genuine and focus on delivering something of real value.

Show what you know

If you’re a service provider, your customers routinely pay for your knowledge and experience. Play to your strengths by hosting an educational gathering related to your area of expertise. For example, a lawyer could offer a free estate planning workshop to recent retirees or present a seminar for small business owners about the implications of recent health care legislation. The payoff for this type of effort is a group of prospective clients who believe in your credibility as a knowledgeable resource and trust in you more than your competitors.

Break out of your box

Perhaps people associate your business with a particular line of services or products even though your catalog is actually much more diverse. A gathering is a great opportunity to shed some light on your less well-known areas of expertise. For instance, a pest control specialist might know as much about protecting garden vegetables from aphids as floor joists from termites. A lecture to the local garden club could open a new niche market hidden from competitors’ view. Likewise, an interior decorator could offer working moms a workshop about organizing with style, thereby becoming the savior of the super-busy.

The power of privilege

Treat your best customers (the ones you or your staff know by name) to a special appreciation event. Give away products and thank them sincerely for being so faithful to you. They will love your company all the more and become even more vocal evangelists for your brand.

Party like it’s $19.99

If your brand or your products already have a fan base, give those fans an excuse to get together and have a good time – all under the banner of your brand. You’re throwing the party. They’re your fans. The conversation will inevitably lead back to you. You don’t have to force it. Think gallery crawls, wine tastings or product launch parties.

For the love of rewards

Oh to be in the audience the day Oprah gives everyone a new car. Most days, though, you’re at least going home with a free book. When you host an event, reward the effort people make to attend by giving away products to those who show up. Better yet, give more products to people who bring others with them. In doing so, you’re not only giving them a no-risk way to experience your product or service, but you’re incentivizing them to spread the word to others as well.

Use the Web to promote your gathering

If you want a large event, invite all your Twitter followers. If a smaller gathering of your best customers is what you’re after, send direct messages to only the most active or influential among them. You can even turn your event into a contest by challenging your Facebook fans to share why they love your products in order to win a place on the guest list. You’ll not only have an instant list of eager attendees, you’ll also reap some great testimonials for later use.

Transcend time and space

When your event is over, share pictures or video online to demonstrate the good time had by all and the value those who attended received. For example, if your event was instructional in nature, offer a recap of the tips that were covered or access to video of a presentation delivered at the event. Get people talking about your event and keep them talking. The important thing is to get people talking about your event and keep them talking – and sharing, and linking to, and blogging, and status updating and tweeting – about what wonderful people you and your staff are and how much value they find in your product, service or expertise.

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