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SOCIAL ANALYTICS
to a conversational framework that can be viewed and tracked quantitatively. It is this
quantitative discipline that enables two essential best practices when it comes to apply-
ing social media to your business or organization:
• Making sense of what people are talking about in a way that leads to prioritized
insights in the context of competing capital efforts
• Connecting these conversations and the results of your programs designed to
change these conversations for the better by addressing adverse conversations
and building on beneficial ones
In traditional communications, the activities that parallel the study of conversa-
tions via social media analytics include press clipping and reporting, focus groups and
consumer research, so-called pre- and post-campaign marketplace surveys, and similar.
In each of these, there is a specifi c collection/identifi cation/result process that underlies
a fundamental learning process. This learning process is designed to anchor the brand,
product, or service in the desires, needs, and reactions of customers, infl uencers, and
others whose opinions matter with regard to what is talked about in the marketplace.
In each of these measurement practices, there is a distinct set of metrics or an accepted
method of stating a learned or observed outcome.
ROI, KPI, and Intangible Value
When defi ning your metrics program, be clear about the diff erence in the types of end results you
are seeking. In addition to ROI—which is nearly always measured in fi nancial terms like increased
revenue, cost savings, or cost avoided as a result of an investment—you should also defi ne target
KPIs—numerical “key performance indicators” like conversions or new registrations—as well as
intangible values associated with simply having a presence in specifi c social channels.
The New Media Sings the Old Media
Social media analytics is built around many of the basic practices applied to traditional
media—who’s talking, what are they saying—now applied to the (digital) conversations
happening on the Social Web. So what’s different? For starters, because social media is
defi ned in some way as leveraging the massively scalable publishing capabilities afforded
to each Social Web participant—in simple terms, recognizing that it is easy for reason-
ably well-connected people to command a reach that rivals TV within local markets
or to reach more accurately defi ned niches and social circles. This means that the well-
connected homemaker, or the hobbyist blogger, or anyone else with a defi ned passion
and a basic command of social media publishing can amass a real audience and can
exert real infl uence within it. Quantitatively measuring this reach and impact is just as
important on the Social Web as it is any place else. Further, because each conversation is
ROI, KPI, and Intangible Value