Tools to Measure Your Social Media Effectiveness
Thursday, 15 September 2011 11:42
By Gary Pageau
Social media is all the rage these days, with CNN anchors reading tweets and presidential candidates announcing their candidacy on Facebook. There also as many social media experts out there plying their trades as there are grains of sand. Before delving deeply into the social-media morass, however, take time to set some goals and standards for success.
The most important thing to remember about social media marketing is not “whether” you should do it, but how can you work it into your overall marketing mix. Social media, and Facebook, in particular, can really benefit your business. For example, if you have a built-up a business based on couponing and promotions, Facebook and local-couponing services like GroupOn or LivingSocial can be effective. But, they have their own set of challenges, too, which is why marketers embarking on a social-media marketing program need measurement tools.
What is your most important marketing objective for your social-media program? Encouraging trial? Engaging future customers? Engaging current customers? Regardless, you are going to need to routinely use measurement tools to gain insight into your success. There are many web services popping up to track social media effectiveness and, unfortunately, they can come and go. (For example, a popular tool named BackType was recently purchase by Twitter and some of its capabilities curtailed. PostRank was just bought by Google.) Also, keep in mind, some of these tools work differently than others, so there’s really no standard of success. Find out what is important to you, and focus on that.
Klout is an interesting for measuring Twitter reach and influence. Just put in your Twitter id and the site analyzes your Twitter “style.” For example, if you’re more of a lurker, you’re Twitter will be as a “Listener” or, if you are knowledgeable in your field, your Klout score may indicate your expertise as a “specialist.” This is valuable because, if you position yourself as an expert, but are only influencing a few people, you know you’ve got some work to do to improve your tweets.
Tweet.Grader is another tool to track, to measure, and to increase Twitter effectiveness. Enter your Twitter name, and the system pulls your account data. The site tracks the history of your follower growth or the number of tweets that were sent. It provides a different perspective than Klout.
Website Grader, from the same developers as Tweet.Grader, lets you to enter your website, along with the name of a competitor, and receive a report featuring like-blog analysis, blog grade, recent blog articles, Google index pages, and readability level. And, if you haven’t had enough Grading yet, this developer also offers Blog.Grader.com.
Twitalyzer is an extensive Twitter management tool, and may be too intensive for the time-press marketer. It does provide a broad view of Twitter metrics – especially in the paid service – but may be information overload for the casual user.
Bit.ly is a URL shortener allowing marketers to shorten links (with options for customized and user-friendly links for reusing links) with some nice tracking features. There’s a pro version, too, for multiple domains, advanced dashboard for data layout, real-time data analytics feed, and customer support. Bit.ly Pro could help in measuring how many people click a specific link. (Also, don’t forget to use the skills you’ve learned from other direct-marketing efforts. Unique PURLs, for example, can be embedded in tweets, to optimize tracking.)
And, finally, HootSuite is a great dashboard tool for monitoring several services, including Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and more. You can send messages directly from Hootsuite, as well as schedule posts for later use. This is especially useful to find out the times of day your customers are more receptive to messages, as well, as planning a campaign in advance. Don’t have time to camp out on Twitter all day to messages out specific times? HootSuite is a good tool for managing campaigns. Another HootSuite benefit: You can have multiple people posting on accounts, and measure their effectiveness. There is a pro version, but most small businesses will need only the free version.
