Modern Day Guide to Measuring Social Media Performance

Despite its importance, I believe social media evaluation is one of the least understood components for leadership. Social media content influences awareness and consideration by 53 percent and is considered a primary means of inspiration/data gathering across generational cohorts (Source: FutureBrand). For destination marketers, social media monitoring and effectiveness is fundamental to brand strategy and reputation management. But what social media metrics really matter? How do you communicate your efforts to leadership?

Luckily several strong social listening software solutions are out there, but it takes a skilled social media analyst to be able to take action on the findings – “action” being the critical element here. Likes, engagement and referrals to your website are certainly fundamental metrics, but if your larger goal is to change perception of your city, you need to take your metrics to the next level. Here is where my thoughts on this subject are taking me, and I hope it help you in your quest for relevance and proving ROI.

Share of voice is not new. Conducting share of voice evaluations against competitive set can help cities seek to establish quantitative, qualitative and tonal baselines. To determine quantitative share of voice, develop a numerical evaluation of mentions. For example, if your city is mentioned 20 times and there were 150 instances of total mentions among your city and its competitors, your quantitative share of voice would be 13.3 percent (20/150 = 0.1333 x 100 = 13.3).

So now that you know your share of voice, does it matter? Then what? Well, you can score mentions by tier, type and tone (positive/negative). For example, Tier 1 can represent national and trade coverage; tier 2 can be what you choose- for example, local and nonspecific, less influential outlets or bloggers. If the majority of mentions/coverage is tier 1, your qualitative analysis would be high. Now you’ve got a baseline.

But what does this mean now for your social media team, and how you manage those passionate people to work smarter and harder for your brand?

Consider setting measurable (realistic) goals around increasing top tier, positive share of voice by, say, 5% in 12 months. Find 10 new ambassadors for the brand based on conversations you are monitoring that you can share with your paid media or influencer relations team.  Improve average response time by 5 hours. Your team can work to improve reach rate (number of users that have seen a post over the lifetime of the post) from 10% to 12% in a certain time. From an issues management standpoint, focus on high priority engagement first that have been triggered based on key words important to your city and measure your engagement ratio on those posts.

Albeit technical, this level of reporting and goal setting isn’t the future of social media management, it is here now. The stronger you are in these reporting areas then you will hopefully start seeing a difference in your perception studies.