Social Media Marketing Measurement: Are We More Than 33% There Yet?

  Nothing has been more important than developing a credible, workable measurement model for our social media-based programs at Ogilvy. Having participated in many of the forums where masrement geeks come together to test-drive their models, it became clear last year that we were all still in the first third of the process. If you think of the inevitable arc of standards development, the first third is floating meaningful measures - no matter how convluted the model - marketers want to know that there are valuable metrics that even exist to justify spending in word of mouth-based social media.

First Third of the Social Media Marketing Measurement Life Cycle
Everyone starts with KPIs (key perfomance indicators) they find compelling. We have 100,000 video views (over 1 month? 6 months? 1 year?). Our Facebook page has accumulated almost 30,000 fans/friends. Our blog mentions add up to a fat 2m UMVs (unique monthly views). KPIs are often without a lot of context. It is safe to say that we are passing through this phase.

Second Third of the Social Media Marketing Measurement Life Cycle
As critics punch holes - rightly so - in the pure KPI model, academic braniacs develop rigorous models in response. Walter Carl's work at ChatThreads (previously at Northeastern) seem to fit here. An extremely smart guy, all you have to do is spend a half hour with Walter and you will be convinced about the strength of his process for matchbacks and other techniques that really do ratify the spread of WOM. You will of course need to hire his company to actually apply the principles.These methods are persuasive, rigorous yet like the Eniac computer, they may require more effort and shelf space than most marketing programs can afford. So, we simplify. I am certian Walter is doing the same. That is the driving pressure behind our modelling at Ogilvy. Conversation Impact was developed to provide a credible and implementable measurement model that could be applied to most projects without a separate budget allocation. We needed a simple model that made sense to brand marketers. These simpler models are still in the early stages. It will be at least a year before 2-3 of them emerge as "leading" contenders. Ours is open to anyone to use and we will see if it gains velocity (presenting next month at ARF).

Meanwhile, brands that explore the more complex and more meaningful measurement models inevitably backslide into KPIs. You can hear it now from your most senior brand marketers, "Can't we just reduce all this complex modeling to 2-3 numbers we care about most? Numbers that reflect how much reach or how much time people are spending with the brand. What if we just count video views and Tweets?"    

Final Third of the Social Media Marketing Measurement Life Cycle
This remains a glimmer in my eye. Once we have the solid and simple modeling out of the second third, we need to ramp up quickly for the inevitable: complexity. The real power of social media marketing is when it becomes integrated into all sorts of communications and marketing - ALL sorts. What is the impact of social media mentions on the performance of adjacent advertising - does it make the ads perform 3x, 10x, 30x better? When frequency of ad impressions fades away as a lynchpin metric, what is the most effective forumla of organic conversation with a brand and the paid media that drives action? As brands explore beyond their microsite-based online marketing to include their presence in Facebook, Linked In or Orkut, what formula will explain how that online footrpint adds up to meaningful action and/or intent to purchase?

Miles to go before we sleep. Lots going on in measurement of social media right now. Still, I wonder some days if we have even made it through the first third of our journey.  

Comments

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[Deborah]

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