Monitoring Social Media Discussions

There are many social media tools available for monitoring discussions that are relevant to your business and your brand. Many of these tools have built-in engagement features that allow you to focus on the discussions that are the most relevant.

The tools are very easy to use and they allow you to monitor and measure discussions that you are a part of very simply. Monitoring tools certainly make your engagement online very easy to manage. Additionally, you have capabilities through the tools to measure the results of your efforts, which is essential to the success of your business. When you are considering your social media measurement strategy, you should include the following metrics:

• Audience engagement: This is a measurement of how much your audience is actually engaging (or speaking) about your brand or your business. Some of the components that factor into the calculation are:
  • Twitter @ tweets and retweets
  • Blog comments
  • YouTube interactions
  • Social media brand mentions
  • Facebook interactions
     
• Gross views: This is the total amount of views among all of youronline communities. The gross views are the number of times that your online connections were exposed to your brand or your business through the various online networks. The calculation will vary depending on which channels your are involved with. Some of the components that go into measuring gross views are:
  • Blog page views
  • Facebook page views
  • YouTube video views
  • YouTube channel views
  • Flickr photo views
     
• Online connections: Online connections are the number of people who have expressed an interest in your business or your brand. By showing an interest, the viewer has moved beyond the first step of merely being exposed to your brand or business to actually engaging in conversation. Some of the components are:
  • LinkedIn group members
  • YouTube connections
  • Facebook fans/likes
  • Blog subscribers
  • Twitter followers
     
• Social media discussions: Once you  have started to have discussions with your online connections, you will need to show how those discussions are turning into conversions to actual clients. You should make sure that your Web analytics tool is measuring social media referrals as well as defining your website goals. At this point, you will be ready to gather the data on how many discussions that turned into conversions can be credited to social media.
   
• Social media referrals: One of your top objectives in business is to get people to refer other people to you. You will need to measure those referrals to your website. This is an important part of your metrics. You can set this up with your analytics tool, which will enable you to make a direct connection with those referrals that are a direct result of social media.
   
• Your online engagements: Your online engagements are a measure of your activity. Some of the components that are included in the calculation are:
  • YouTube video posts
  • Internal blog posts
  • External blog and forum comments
  • Twitter retweets, general tweets and @ tweets

Conclusion

The metrics that have been discussed here are effective and very important when it comes to monitoring your discussions that are connected to your efforts. Of course, they are not all of the possible metrics available. There are many more tools that will give you social media metrics, such as measuring comments, fans, followers, key page activity, messaging, etc. All of these tools will allow you to measure the results of  your social media efforts accurately and you will learn whether your efforts are paying off.

We are pleased to provide you with the insightful comments contained herein. Please contact us at CompuKol Communications for further discussion on how we might be able to assist you and your team and don’t forget to “like” our Facebook page.

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About the Author.  

Michael Cohn is the founder and Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of CompuKol Communications LLC. He has over 25 years of experience in IT and web technologies.

Mr. Cohn founded CompuKol Communications to help small businesses and entrepreneurs increase their exposure and reputation on the Internet. CompuKol consults, creates, and implements communication strategies for small businesses to monopolize their markets with a unique business voice, vision, and visibility.

Prior to that, Mr. Cohn spent a significant amount of time at a major telecommunications company, where his main focus was on initiating and leading synergy efforts across all business units by dramatically improving efficiency, online collaboration, and the company’s Intranet capabilities, which accelerated gains in business productivity. His expertise includes social media marketing strategies; internet marketing; web presence design; business analysis; project management; management of global cross-matrix teams; systems engineering and analysis, architecture, prototyping and integration; technology evaluation and assessment; systems development; performance evaluation; and management of off-shore development.

Mr. Cohn earned a Master’s degree in project management from George Washington University in Washington, DC; and a Master’s degree in computer science and a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering from Fairleigh Dickinson University in Teaneck, NJ.

Mr. Cohn is a member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).

Tags: Analytics, Social Media, Social Media Marketing, Social Media Monitoring

This entry was posted on March 29, 2011 at 5:00 am. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Posted in Analytics Social Media Social Media Marketing by Michael Cohn 5 Comments