Social media marketing has taken the business world by storm, but according to a study last year, 68% of companies cannot or do not know how to measure social media ROI (return on investment). This is how social media management ends up getting banished to the intern’s task sheet.
If you’re engaging in social media marketing simply because it’s all the rage, you’re probably not being effective. Next week, we’ll discuss the metrics that you can use to power your digital marketing success. But for now, here are the 3 social media metrics that you don’t need.
#1 – Klout Score
The idea behind the Klout score is a good one, no doubt. And it does indicate, at the very least, authority on a topic. But remember the example of @horse_ebooks – a spam account that randomly tweets snippets from the ebooks that it hawks (presumably about horses) that has gained a cult following on the Internet. The root of its Twitter popularity and a resultant Klout score of 74 was best summed up by Jon Hendren, writer at SomethingAwful.com:
“@Horse_ebooks is a Twitter bot designed and automated by apparently some Russian guy to sell worthless, horrible ebooks about horses. In order to avoid being detected as a spam bot, it occasionally posts a text snippet or two from one of its ebooks, chosen at random. I will never buy an ebook from it, but I will follow this Twitter account until I die or horses become extinct, whichever comes first.”
The tale of @horse_ebooks should drive this message home: just because something is popular on the internet doesn’t mean it can convert followers into customers or fans into clients.
#2 – Your Facebook Fans
In just a minute, we’re going to explain why the number of friends, fans, and followers you have doesn’t matter, period, but Facebook fan count deserves its own assessment because it’s the most commonly misconstrued marker of digital success. Facebook’s EdgeRank system is designed to only allow your well-branded messages to reach users who already engage with your Facebook page.
Instead, you should take a look at the “People Talking About This” metric. This number better reflects your social influence and what (if any) impact you have on your followers.As people engage with your brand, you’re more likely to appear on the feeds of “friends” of your fans, thus funneling new traffic to your page.
#3 – The Total Number of Friends, Fans, and Followers You Have
That’s right. That Facebook fan page you’ve been cultivating for months, or that Twitter feed you’ve been pouring hours into means next to nothing when compared to a healthy email marketing list. Banking on social platforms to drive the majority of your business is a principle known as digital sharecropping, and it’s dangerous.
The idea of digital sharecropping was outlined by Nicholas Carr in 2006, and can be boiled down to this: you don’t own the Web platforms that you’re building your digital bases on. If that platform changes its service or evolves in a direction that no longer drives your business the way you’re used to, you’re up a creek without a paddle.
You’re using the Facebook, Google+, Twitter, and LinkedIn platforms not just because they are popular, but because they’re currently and demonstrably successful channels of marketing and business success – granted. And these tools might be useful to you for a long time, but what happens to your business when Facebook becomes the next MySpace, or when the next craze in digital business, management, or marketing rolls into town?
This doesn’t mean that these platforms are bad for your business, and you should leverage them to your advantage to drive traffic to your website and to your opt-in email list. You control these assets. Even if your email account is hacked, you can export your mailing lists to other providers and keep a back-up copy on your hard drive – or even a hard copy on your desk, a printed list of your contacts. If your Web host goes under, you simply upload your backed-up copy of your website to another hosting provider, and re-direct the URL.
It’s OK to keep an eye on these numbers, but remember that when it comes right down to it, they don’t influence or measure the volume of your business or its projected growth. Invest your time in assets that will drive your business with demonstrable success, like an informative website, email list, or promotional ebook.
This article was originally published at We Do Web Content and has been re-posted with permission.
From @NotKlout: Klout is fun and entertaining, and should be viewed that way. It is really a measure of people’s ability to get their friends to say they are influential. While I write this, I am sitting here not tweeting and I can feel my Klout score slipping away! Lord, release me from this horrible burden!
Don’t get me wrong; I’ve reaped some benefits from Klout! In fact, I even scored a FREE VIP ticket to the Social Commerce Summit in New York, presented by Business Insider (a $999) value for having a high enough Klout score (60+) and ranking in social media. However, is it a good measure of how good I am at converting my followers into customers? Not necessarily. It just shows that they like what I have to say.
Awesome and insightful. I love #3, very true. I think there are a lot of people very concerned about Google+ for this very reason, after investing tens of thousands of dollars into Facebook… What happens if Google+ turns it into a ghost town?
People take a lot of pride in these numbers, and while there’s nothing wrong with that, and certainly nothing wrong with having a lot of fans, followers, or friends on you social media profiles, you shouldn’t rest all your laurels on a web property or platform that you don’t have control over! It’s a poisonous mixture.
That being said, I don’t think Facebook will disappear overnight, but even if it doesn’t, just a few changes in its TOS could spell disaster for some brands.
Good Morning,
This is really bad advise to many folks reading your article. While I completely get the value of “engagement and community” however until a Facebook Page has more than a few hundred fans, it is useless. To say that the numbers don’t matter is equal to saying money in your checkbook doesn’t matter and equating that to quality of life. While they have little to do with each other, they have everything to do with each other if you aren’t meeting minimum standards.
The point being, if there isn’t enough Fans and Followers there isn’t anyone to interact with. Perhaps a better argument may be to determine what are the minimum thresholds, is it 1,750 fans or 7,500 Fans, because it surely isn’t 75 or even 750 most likley.
Respectfully, I think you’re completely wrong. Anyone can ask their friends and family members to “like” a page and get their friends and family members to “like” a page, but that doesn’t mean you’re going to turn Likers into Consumers. There’s no implicit conversion value in a Facebook page. Likes are easy and cheap to come by.
If you read the article in its entirety ;) you’ll see that I point out towards the end: “It’s OK to keep an eye on these numbers, but remember that when it comes right down to it, they don’t influence or measure the volume of your business or its projected growth.”
I’m going to stand by that. I’ve seen businesses with thousands of FB fans go under because they were incapable of converting those Likes. Social popularity doesn’t automatically mean business success – we’ve just been hoodwinked into believing that so that we’ll pump money into unnecessary expenditures, like Facebook ads (caveat: when used PROPERLY, Facebook ads are great, but most people use them solely to get Likes and have no “next-step” strategy for growing their business beyond getting popular on FB).
Also, as I pointed out, just because someone Likes your brand doesn’t mean they are going to SEE your messages. EdgeRank only prioritizes Pages you interact with, which is why the “Who’s Talking About This” metric is more useful.
As for a minimum threshold, that is completely relative to the business model and basis, so to even begin on that would be a hypothetical thought experiment and of no practical value to the readers.
So, I respect your opinion, but I’m going to stand by my own.
Excellent post Alex. It is astonishing to hear that 68 percent of businesses do not know how to measure social media return on investment (ROI). I am sure that this leads many businesses to cut social media marketing from the marketing picture all-together, or at least not use it to its full extent. This is obviously unfortunate because social media is a cost-effective way to reach a large audience, plus an interactive way to engage customers/partners/followers/etc. Incorporating social and digital media marketing methods with fundamental aspects of a business provides an innovative way to further engage customers and users. This increases user interaction and ultimately provides a positive experience. As the Marketing Director of the Cisco Government Practice, I have found that integrating digital media with conferences and events allows for an overall positive and engaging experience for the user. This incorporation of social media allows users to participate and be interactive before, during and after an event. This increased participation and interest has the user thinking after the event, which is the exact outcome a business wants in this situation. I appreciate this insightful post, Alex, I hope that businesses start to understand the true benefits an incorporated digital marketing campaign can yield for them.