CHAPTER 7
Listening, Measurement, Analytics, and ROI
However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.
—Winston Churchill
One of the key pieces of advice that Chris Brogan, president of New Marketing Labs, offers to companies (or anyone) getting started in social media is “Grow bigger ears.” This is a maxim repeated over and over again in a variety of different ways: Listen before you talk. Join the conversation. Social media is a cocktail party.
The reason so many people talk about it is that it’s right. The most important thing your company can do when getting started in social media is listen and learn. Hear what people are already saying about you, what channels they’re saying it in, and the ways people communicate in those channels.
Unfortunately, there’s no shortcut for this. You will not derive anything of value from social media if you are primarily concerned with broadcasting your message. If you can’t accept that, put down this book and move on.
If you’re still here, we’ll talk about the different types of monitoring and measurement activity you can engage in to get some real value and build up to a model for measuring social media return on investment (ROI).
A SIMPLE LISTENING FRAMEWORK
Listening is even more important in social media than talking. Your customers and prospects are sharing information daily about their business challenges, and you need to listen. There are lots of ways that you can take advantage of that information, but let’s ...
