Social Media Tools of Measurement
More than Just a Numbers Game, Social Media Metrics is About Relationships
When it comes to social media optimization, we are monitoring more than just the hard-and-fast numbers we monitor in the Search Engine Optimization side of our business - such as: Is the client's site on Page 1 in Google search results? At what position, and how has that changed from past weeks?
However, that said, social media metrics are far more interesting and varied than SEO; we are tracking:
- Same metrics as SEO mentioned here: search results page rankings
- for more than the corporate site's ranking; for the company's Flick page ranking, YouTube channel's ranking, etc.
- We use Feedburner to track the number of RSS feed subscriptions a blog receives, and track that pattern.
- Levels of engagement - measured differently in different social media channels. So, for example:
- How many views did your video get on YouTube or one of the other myraid video-sharing sites we submit your video to? Comments left there?
- How many views did your photo get on Flickr or other photo-sharing sites? Comments left?
- How many comments left on your blog posts? Are they increasing? Which type of posts generate the most?
- How many emails do you get from readers?
- What percentage of your comments are positive/negative/neutral
Keeping an Eye on the End Game
Of course, in both the case of SEO and social media metrics, you need to be monitoring the key benchmarks of success as well:
- How much more traffic are your social media efforts driving to your company site?
- What analytics indicate that you are seeing traction in that regard:
- Number of unique visitors
- Number of page views
- Time spent on page
- Bounce rate