Social Media Marketing For Dummies, 3rd Edition

Chapter 21

Applying Metrics to the SMM Realm

In This Chapter

Calculating your SMM score

Measuring influencer activity

Analyzing activity on various social media platforms

Tying social media marketing measurement to business results

There’s a common myth that social media marketing isn’t really measurable. Many a strategist has said that you can’t measure the value of a conversation. These strategists believe that measuring a phenomenon is always difficult, especially when you’re still figuring out how to make use of it.

The truth is that these days, social media marketing is as measurable as any other form of marketing. This wasn’t the case a few years ago — but that has been quickly changing. Today, tools, techniques, and mechanisms are available to measure social media marketing. These are broader brand metrics, which may not be as measurable as a direct-response marketer may like.

There are also specific campaign- or program-oriented metrics that you can capture, analyze, and map to other performance indicators. These may be in the category of a YouTube campaign, an online community ...