It’s 2010 and more and more businesses are getting comfortable with social media. They’re engaging. They’re responding to customer service complaints. They’re producing content (that’s useful) for a live web audience. But are they measuring the right thing?
“We want 40,000 Twitter followers…”
“We want 50,000 Facebook Fans…”
More followers. More friends. And more Fans across every possible social network. It doesn’t matter who they are, they just want the numbers to boast a badge and claim bragging rights.
The numbers are nice, but do they make sense?
Are the Fans (followers, etc.) relevant? When we wrote about the success Dale Chumbley was having with his 10,000+ Facebook Fans, you know what’s great about it? His Fans are all LOCAL members of the community (in other words, they’re relevant).
Focus On More Than Just A Single Measurement:
Blog subscribers are great. A good number tells us that more than just a single person is listening. It’s indicative of the fact that people like your content. But focusing on just a single measurement, in this case a number of Followers/Fans/Subscribers, doesn’t make any sense. You’re measuring ego when you should be measuring behavior. Ask yourself things like:
- What kind of blog posts get the most views/comments?
- What kind of Status Updates get the most interactions?
- What kind of articles get the most Tweets?
But most importantly, ask yourself things like:
- Are any of these interactions converting into anything? When someone contacts you via your contact form, that’s a lead. When someone subscribes to your newsletter, that’s a lead.
- How much are these conversions costing me (time & money) versus traditional marketing efforts?
- How much time do I need to invest before I see an actual payoff?
Numbers are great but they’re not the only metric to monitor. Understanding how/why people are engaging with your content is important too.
What kind of metrics are you looking at to track whether your being effective online?
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