Kami Huyse recently gave a presentation on social media measurement and talks about it here. And, along with Geoff Livingston, they have started a wider conversation on measurement and asked some very very smart people (and me) to answer some questions.
So here goes! (and it’s a long post… enjoy!)
DISCUSS: Do you think measurement of social media is important, and why.
I don’t think the importance of measurement can be understated. It’s taken me about a year or so to figure out the whole social media sphere – and I’m still a novice in comparison to some of the other folks responding to these questions. In between classes, and my agency and my toddler, social media has really been a hobby.
But, the more I’m immersed, the more I’m able to turn my attention beyond the technology basics and “1st level” understanding, I am focusing more on issues like measurement and ethics of social media and understanding how these tools are changing the way we communicate (and how the way we communicate is changing the tools we use).
Let me back up a second. I often create my own lingo for concepts I use in my classes. By “1st level,” I mean understanding the tools, their functions and their fit into public relations. In Kami’s presentation she calls this level “analytics.” My classes are still at this “1st level” of understanding.
I look forward to the day when we can move to “2nd level” understanding. And I suppose by that I mean how to measure the quality of conversation and dialogue – the relationships.
RESOURCES: What are your favorite resources for social media measurement? Do you recommend any methodologies? For those of you that have them, can you point to posts about measurement you have written in the past?
My favorites are Google Analytics and Google Blogsearch right now. My students and my clients are still beginners and this is where we start. I’ve had some great success helping both understand the importance of measurement and demonstrating results with these two tools.
I also use Technorati, Delicious and Flickr.
I have not written much about measurement…yet! I rely on Kami’s posts and KD Paine’s posts, particularly to help me establish a solid grounding in this area.
EXAMPLES: Do you have any examples of measurement you have used in a social media campaign. Did these campaigns have any positive business outcomes (ROI) and/or relationships)?
I have one very very rudimentary example, but it’s gone a long way to convincing a client that they need to blog, specifically.
I was pitching a new client recently. As part of that conversation, we talked a lot about blogging and how it worked, why she should pay attention and how it might help her in all the ways that blogging can help organizations communicate with their stakeholders.
That evening, I set up a Google Blogsearch alert on the organization. The next morning – I kid you not… the very next morning – there was a post including the name of the company. It was a very positive post, with the blogger talking about how much she loved the company’s product. (Whew!) I forwarded that post to the company’s owner and told her this could be a great opportunity to comment on the post and create an even better relationship with this customer.
Long story short, she did. The blogger was shocked that the owner found her and commented and proceeded to write another post showcasing all of her products from this company with photos and commentary about how much she loved them. The whole thing took about 48 hours and now the client is a big fan of blogging. She had fun participating and saw the results of that interaction.
Like I said, pretty rudimentary, but it was a ton of fun and made a indelible impression on this client.
I’m going to expand the conversation circle a bit. I’d love to hear what Robert French thinks (particularly how he’s talking to students about measurement) and I’m also going to tag Dr. Tiffany Derville, our newest addition to the PR faculty at the University of Oregon. Tiffany doesn’t blog, so I’ll solicit her feedback and include it here as a guest post. Tiffany’s area of interest is relationship management and I imagine she can add to this discussion!
Kami’s presentation:
Kelli; I appreciate that you talk about this in terms of levels. It actually has crystallized some of my thoughts, so thank you.
Thanks also for your concrete example of how a mind was turned by a relational exchange.
You are right that it is time to start thinking beyond analytics to relational measurement. However, analytics will still be a part of this.
It seems the role for PR is in the relational area, so we must learn to measure it.