How does your social web program measure up?

Measuring activity of your social web program is one of the most important parts of a social web strategy.

Your program can be measured by the Actions taken by your audience. This concept refers to the business results of your online efforts. Have your efforts resulted in a raise in revenue, subscribers, funds raised, items sold or purchase intent. It can also include invitations to participate in speaking engagements and media interviews.

Another measurement could be the overall sentiment or tonality of comments and posts - the Attitude. Are the comments left on your platforms positive, negative or neutral in tone? Are people voicing an interest or excitement in your program? Is the dial moving towards more positive or neutral comments from negative ones? Are people commenting more favourably about your company or brand?

Lastly, the overall volume of interest or Attention your program gets could be another measure of success. This concept factors in your number of fans achieved throughout your program as well as web traffic, page views, downloads, blogs mentions, clicks, follows, shares and retweets. In addition to measuring active engagement is also measuring whether you are influencing the influencers. Are the people that matter, the “influencers” - those with a lot of followers who may also be influencers, those who engage on social platforms frequently and have built a community who respects their opinion - giving your program attention?

You determine what success means to your program. The main goal of any strategy should be to garner as much attention and positive attitude towards your program to warrant an action towards your business goal.

The following are examples of social web campaigns that received a lot of attention and positive reaction which resulted in an increase in sales:

In 2010, Old Spice body wash came out with its Youtube campaign which reached 40,000,000 views in a week and garnered 1,400,000,000 in impressions. More people watched these videos in 24 hours than Obama’s presidential victory speech. Old Spice saw a 107% increase in short-term sales while the campaign cost an estimated $250,000 to run.

Since 2011, Sharpie has created a robust social presence. The strategy was to put users at the forefront to find new ways that consumers are using their products. Sharpie has over 3 million facebook fans, 200,000 plus followers on Twitter with over 10,000 tweets and over 2 million videos viewed on the Youtube channel. Along with their blog and a secondary personalized site Sharpie saw an increase in sales of 3% in 2011 in both pens and markers when sales of pens and markers were on the decline.