The Benefits Of Social Media Measurement

Social media measurement is increasing playing a larger role in today’s business planning.

Many may ask, what is social media measurement? Social media measurement occurs when your company takes an aggressive stance in monitoring media platforms (or channels) such as Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, and Twitter, and then uses the data from these social networking platforms to build a comprehensive picture of its clients.

This networking measurement can be refined by the use of social media analysis tools, but in general it asks:

• How often is my company being talked about?
• Are my company mentions more positive or negative?
• Are there areas of crisis that we need to address immediately?
• Was campaign X a winner?
• Where are the majority of my company mentions coming from?
• Who are the people discussing my company?
• What can I do to drive sales higher?
• What can I do to increase my ROI?
• What more can I offer to increase customer service and brand loyalty?

Social media measurement is, in the most simple of terms, a way for you to discover how visible your brand name is throughout social media. It allows you to ascertain how successful a campaign has been, track performance compared to competitors, as well as identify and thwart a potential crisis. It can also help you recognize opportunities for further engagement in a particular area, making it possible for your brand to not just expand but exploit a great reputation, acquire new customers, engage new campaigns, and more.

Gathering all of this valuable information takes the coordination of many different teams of people, including market researchers and marketing teams, sales teams, PR staff, and staff who are dedicated to the implementation and monitoring of social media sites. Each department analyzes measurements pertinent to their area and then company-wide combines those measurements to paint a complete picture of why customers are talking about the company.

As social media presence and measurement becomes more prevalent, more tools are being developed to provide up to the minute data. While not all company mentions can be tracked, these tools can be extremely useful in painting a picture of where you are in comparison to where you want to be.