Measuring social media - user vs., product data

Measuring social media engagement and return on investment is an evolving science, with a lot of ideas on what is more important to track and record. I proposed an approach on “user and product metrics” in this blog a few weeks back (here’s the link: http://www.analyticsheaven.com/2010/02/social-media-can-drive-roi-now.html). While some of it may seem like a part of a marketing plan, it is still useful data for continuous monitoring and improvement.

Let’s expand on these success metrics. What metrics help us understand the user behavior and engagement on our site? Some of the obvious ones include, number of visits from social sites, followers/fans, page views (content sites) and leads, referring sites, demographic data on users commenting on your product, user segment more “prone” to conversion, loyalty based user segmentation, etc. Based on this data, we can decide how to engage our social media users; add more product information, product updates or new product ideas, engage new user bases, pamper most engaged user segments and our “net promoters,” etc.

To learn more about our products we need to monitor the features that people are tweeting about, be it our’s or our competitors’. Offline products may be impacted by, seasonality of product usage, recalls, new feature and/or product launches, etc. In case of an online product, social promotions can yield instantaneous glimpses into how we did on page design, site, navigation, layout, etc. Think of monitoring Bounce Rates, time spent on the site, pages consumed post landing, brand/product mentions and shares on social sites, etc. These will be good indicators of how well is the site performing relative to your expectations and competition. However, prior to starting a formal monitoring process, we need to set the benchmarks, so we can assess and define the deviations in tweeting behavior.

While following the social usage and consumption, don’t forget the company blog. This is where users will feel most connected and empowered to share their views and ideas about your product. Make sure it is conveniently linked from the social sites in order for the interested consumers to take that extra step.