Focusing on Social Media Metrics Across the Stages of Engagement

CMOs and their teams are trying to determine the best way to create and measure customer engagement. As more customers connect via mobile and social channels this only adds to the complexity. Just as it took organizations time to learn how to leverage and manage websites, we are still learning how to leverage and manage these new channels. There’s no denying that social and mobile channels have become mainstream engagement vehicles that impact customer acquisition and retention. More of the marketing budgets are now being allocated to digital channels, taking these dollars from more traditional vehicles such as print advertising.

The IBM Global CMO Study of 1700 CMOs  revealed that while top marketing executives recognize social media as an important channel for engaging customers, 80 percent or more of the CMOs surveyed said they still focus primarily on traditional sources of information like market research to help shape customer engagement and marketing strategies. Only 26 percent of CMOs track blogs, 42 percent monitor third-party reviews, and 48 percent reading consumer reviews to help shape their marketing strategies. A more recent study by PulsePoint earlier this year found that companies with an established extensive social media presence reported a return on investment that was more than four times that of companies with little or no social network engagement activity. Almost half of the 329 executives participating in the study said that the major impediment to social media campaigns was the lack of a standardized metric that can measure a return on investment. These studies serve to remind us that examining customer interactions across the channels in order to have a holistic picture is important. They also highlight that measuring isn’t the challenge; it is measuring the business value of social media that remains difficult.

In fact, there is no lack of data or metrics to track. As usual, the key challenge is selecting the right metrics and ones that are actionable. A key place to start is to determine what information actually indicates these stages of engagement that you can use to inform decision making. For example, how might you measure the quality and quantity of conversations started via social media channels and the conversion rate of these conversations to consideration behaviors, such as a particular type of inquiry. For example “liking” and “following” metrics may only reflect very early stages of engagement, such as contact or connection. Page views and click throughs provide insight into what captures interest and may also reflect early stage engagement behaviors. Ultimately you want to focus on social media metrics that help you understand how to impact the entire engagement cycle – from contact to conversation to consideration to consumption and eventually consumption and community. By adding these types of metrics, you can learn content and customer communication and interaction create both the most and best interaction and engagement.