The real numbers behind your social media indices

According to a new survey by online business community Manta, Social media use is trending upward and nearly 50% have increased time spent on social media this year and nearly 55% say they’re using platforms like Twitter and Facebook as the most important tool for either acquiring new customers of generating sales leads. It is very praiseworthy that more and more companies are getting involved in social media, but few are able to report its real value. According to eMarketer, only 13% of marketers feel they are "very effective" at measuring social media efforts. In terms of measurement and accountability, social media should be treated the same as email, search, display and other marketing channels. If you want to see social media's true impact on your business, you need to have a system and framework for pulling real meaning from the data and trends that emerge from your measurement and monitoring.

You need to build a social media measurement strategy that aligns with business objectives, exhibits the business value of your social media program, and provides the insight that enables you to optimize for maximum impact. Put meaning behind the data you gather from social media.

Why it is so that few businesses have a framework in place to measure the real value behind social media? You need to align your business objectives with social measurement.

1. Monitor and react to social media 24/7:

Every minute is vital when it comes to preventing a Social Media crisis. 24/7 moderation protects a brand’s reputation and alerts them to developing issues as they occur.

2. Moderate and remove unsuitable content such as racism and pornography immediately:

Seventy-five percent of Facebook users believe pornographic and racist comments on a brand page are completely inappropriate. Sixty-six percent users would ‘unlike’ the brand and 39% would never buy the product again.

3. Implement strong threat detection and escalation processes:

You need to react immediately to your Twitter account being hi-jacked on a holiday. As we saw with the recent hacking of a fast food chain’s social media account, it is critical to be alerted to a hacked account as quickly as possible. In this instance, it resulted in 53 hijacked tweets that were retweeted more than 70,000 times.

4. Monitor your campaign sentiment:

A badly thought out Social Media campaign can spread like wild fire. A quick reaction to negative sentiment will make all the difference. A recent example involved the banking sector using charitable organizations in their campaigns receiving a huge social media backlash.

5. Influencers need to be responded fast:

A celebrity tweet complaining about your product or service will only go one way if it’s not dealt with fast. Conversely, a quick and proactive response can do wonders for your brand’s reputation.

Through today's technology, your business likely has increasing access to information about how customers and potential ones behave especially online - consuming media, interacting with friends, indicating interest in products, and of course making purchases. Needless to say, this data is a source of competitive advantage that your group, large or small, can and should leverage to predict future behavior and better position yourself in the marketplace. The challenge, for many businesses, is in lacking the tools, know-how, and resources. Once you've found the data you know matters, you can analyze and make interpretations that means to all parts of your business planning and practical execution, which will help you to take actionable decisions on a day-to-day basis.