10 Metrics to measure for B2B Social Media

The info below is from The Social Times; cool blog I like to read with some timely insights.

According to 2009 Mzinga & Babson Executive Education study, over 80% of professionals do not measure ROI for their company’s social media programs. Granted, Social Metrics and their measurement techniques are relatively new, and this might account for the lag in tracking. However, there are some organizations measuring social metrics, which enables them to eventually measure ROI. Marketing Sherpa’s survey of 2,000+ marketers shows the following three social metrics at the top of what’s being measured:

a, Visitors and sources of traffic
b, Network size (followers, fans, members)
c, Quantity of commentary about brand or product

These are easily understandable common social metrics. However, with some C-level executives saying that they want to measure ROI from social media but don’t yet know the value of certain types of social media, there has to be more measurement and analysis. Monitoring data is only valuable if metrics relevant to a company are being tracked, analyzed, then applied to improving a Social Media Marketing (SMM) strategy. Each company may have some specific requirements, but here are ten important social media metrics to measure:

1. 1. Social media leads. Track web traffic breakdowns from all social media sources, and chart the top few sources over time. If members of your social media networks are sending referrals, consider measuring this data as well.
2. 2. Engagement duration. For some companies, engagement duration is more important than page views. For example, if you have a Facebook application, how much time are social network members spending using it? Is per-member usage increasing over time? Alternately, if people visit your your company websites from SM (Social Media) sites, how long are they spending? (Also consider tracking which pages they visit.)
3. 3. Bounce rate. Are visitors coming to your site from SM sites but quickly leaving? Maybe your landing page needs better, more relevant copy. Maybe the information they’re seeking isn’t easily found.
4. 4. Membership increase and active network size. This is the portion of your company’s social networks (e.g., Twitter, Facebook) that actively engages with your social media content (e.g., Twitter, Facebook Pages, etc.) Is your collective members, followers, fans network growing, and is there interaction with your content?
5. 5. Activity ratio. How active is your company’s collective social network? Compare the ratio of active members vs total members, and chart this over time. There’ll always be some social network members who are inactive, but if you initiate a campaign to increase interaction, you should also measure the resulting data. Activity can be measured in a variety of ways, including usage of social applications.
6. 6. Conversions. You want social network members to convert: into subscriptions, sales (direct or through affiliates), Facebook application use, or whatever other offerings you have in your overall sales funnel and that can somehow be directly or indirectly monetized. (E.g., subscription to a weekly e-newsletter can be monetized by giving other companies access to your list in the form of advertising.) Measure all types of conversions and chart them over time.
7. 7. Brand mentions in social media. So, you have a highly active social network and members are talking about your company or the company’s brands. Measure and track both positive and negative mentions, and their quantities.
8. 8. Loyalty. Are social members interacting in the network repeatedly, sharing content and links, mentioning your brands, evangelizing? How many members reshare? How often do they reshare?
9. 9. Virality. Social members might be sharing Twitter tweets and Facebook updates relevant to your company, but is this info being reshared by their networks? How soon afterwards are they resharing? How many FoaFs (Friends of Friends) are resharing your links and content?
10. 10. Blog interaction. This is actually more than one metric lumped together. Blogs ARE part of an SMM (Social Media Marketing) toolkit, but only if you allow comments and interact with readers by responding. If you’re doing this, encourage responses either directly in the comments section of blog posts, or via Twitter. (Use a blog widget that allows this.) If your blog’s content is suitable for social voting (Digg, Propeller, Mixx, etc.) or social bookmarking (Delicious, Stumbleupon) sites, install a blog plugin that displays the necessary sharing “buttons”, then track referrals back from those sites.

You can see from the above list that there are both key metrics and variations that you’ll probably want to monitor and analyze, depending on your business objectives. Not all of them are simple metrics to track, and as such do require either or both custom tools and custom reports. Supplement your metrics reports by noting any milestones in your SMM plan. Also, if you run any sort of social campaigns, measure the ROI on specific goals. Social campaigns could use applications (E.g., Facebook applications like Mob the Rainbow) to encourage social participation. Measure application usage and resulting conversions. Finally, the use of complex measurements such as Multiple Moving Averages (MMAs) can show both short- and long-term trends, thus providing you with an overall view of the health of your sites and social networks.

To, or to not get an MBA, that is the question?

Was chatting with a good friend of mine's son about whether to pursue an MBA or not and I asked what he wants to do. He claimed he wants to do a start-up and feels that an MBA would help him secure the financing. Interesting point though I told him understanding what your customer wants and knowing how to build it into a solid "buy-low/sell high, collect early/pay-late" business model that's scalable and deliver value has little to do with getting an MBA. Below is a paragraph from a thoughtful article by Vivek Wahhwa that recently appeared in TechCrunch.

"In my experience, the most successful entrepreneurs have been those with a strong technical background who have been through some sort of “finishing school”. (I am not talking about college dropouts such as Bill Gates and Steve Jobs—I consider them to be outliers). Engineering degrees can be very technical and can actually narrow one’s horizons. To innovate, you need to understand customers and markets. To build a successful product—one that actually sells and makes an impact, you need to understand distribution and finance. So even in the lower echelons of technology, a broader educational background is a plus."

Read more: http://techcrunch.com/2010/05/08/is-an-mba-a-plus-or-a-minus-in-the-startup-world/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher#ixzz0nMMx6Rvi

Single Greatest Event in Human History: Christ's Resurrection.

Ever wonder about what was the single greatest event in the history of human existence? I found this list by Shane Ross titled Important Event in Human History an interesting way to succinctly view a time line of event but it got me thinking about which of these more than 500 items is the most important? In my opinion only part of it is listed here.

For me the single most important event in human history occurred in the spring of 30AD over the weekend following the Passover and is recorded by the physician "Luke" in that which he describes the Crucifixion and Resurrection of Jesus Christ .

Unlike all the other events listed by Shane Ross the death and subsequent resurrection of Jesus Christ is the only event in human history that impacts every human that has ever existed. The events that weekend were God's ultimate expression of His love to us and through it we have forgiveness and eternal salvation for those who believe. The Gospel is truly unlike any religion in that its the "Good News" about what God already "did" for us through the death and resurrection of Jesus. Despite what all the world's various religion's say the Bible is quite clear that there is nothing any one who has ever lived can do to earn their salvation as it is a free gift from God that we celebrate on Easter. Mr Ross has compiled an impressive list but I know that the events of this weekend in 30AD are the most important in human history.

Leadership vs. Management

John Kotter has been studying leadership in CEOs for 30+ years and I found the following paragraph in his book titled "What Leaders Really Do" an excellent summary of his most enjoyable book.

"Most corporations today are overly managed and underled, says Kotter. Management and leadership have two distinct, fundamental purposes. Management is about coping with complexity. Leadership is about coping with change. Good CEOs and senior management effectively do both all the while knowing where their strengths and weaknesses lie. They take steps that span a career--and that at times are personally painful--in working to improve their weaknesses. The key, of course, is to perceive and admit them."

Getting started in understanding the Gospel

Was recently chatting with a good friend of mine who was interested in reading the Bible but had no idea how to get started. I recently came across the following titled Bible Readings for New Christians and frankly I think it's a great way to get started.

A really cool desk top

Eight Great Questions to Ask About yourself about your Sales Team

The following is a nice write up by Melissa Raffoni re: things every sales manager should ask themselves in Q1.

"If you and your team are assessing your organization's sales effectiveness, here are eight common questions that I hear CEOs ask each other in peer groups:

1. "Ok, tell us again, what's your value proposition? Why should customers choose you over the competitors?" It's so basic, isn't it? Yet, I continue to be amazed at how difficult it is to answer this question well. With the constantly changing competitive landscapes and customer needs, every company should take a second look at what they are pitching and why it still resonates today. I'm sure, for most, the value proposition needs a facelift.

2. "What is your sales process and how does your organizational structure map to it?"

3. "Do you think your overall cost of sales is where it should be? What makes you think that? Are you comparing to an industry standard or mapping to a projected financial model?"

4. What key measures are you using to track sales effectiveness? Do you have a sales dashboard?" Is it cost of sales as a percentage of revenue, close ratio, sales person productivity? Something else? You can't really optimize if you don't know which lever you want to move.

5. "If you believe there are two ways to drive sales--increase the funnel and/or increase the close ratio--what are you doing to achieve those increases?

6. "Is sales compensation driving the right behaviors?" Is there enough of a variable compensation compenent to make a difference?

7. "It's a new world, how are you taking advantage of it?" Partners are willing to talk, new talent is on the street, customers are looking for high ROI offerings, social media is changing how people communicate. Are you experimenting?

8. Do you have the right people?

9. Have you built fairly predictable and repeatable sales process? If so, what would happen if you simply put more resources against it--will you yield a greater result? If not, why? If so, why not do that? Other common questions center around the model and what works--hunters, farmers, key account reps, independent reps---does your model still make sense in this economy? Do you need to be more aggressive or take a different tact? Is there a model that will yeild a better result given the cost?