I have spent the better part of my afternoon (and by better I mean AWESOME) brushing up on what the world has to say about what I already know. Ya, I’m just that good. From the 13 year old kid who spent summers being certified in Paint Shop Pro web design and Basic HTML skills to dedicate my first website as “Laura Croft’s Playhouse” (which sounds entirely naughty now) to today where my dabbling turns to doodling a list of skills that upon popular demand I plan to turn into a business. However, there are two things that have always left me with one foot on each shore – sort of between doing a favor and asking for compensation which always left me well… hanging there, out to dry, or sunk. These two things were – effectively reporting analytics and here we go again… compensation.
The first evil of all evils. Analytics, to some degree, is easy. Pay per click analytics and website analytics are entirely measurable. Bit.ly URLs of a number of varieties have made Social Media Marketing somewhat MORE analytical but not entirely. I have an epic story (no, not the record label) with my experience at Sony Music Entertainment using bit.ly URLs where my team and I used these URLs to help promote Manchester Orchestra’s last album on sale for $3.99 at Amazon.com for ONE day only. Our goal was to outsell Lady Gaga at the time. With less than 24 hours to make it and in comparison a virtually “nameless” band (although DON’T tell me that, Manchester Orchestra is a GOD) Manchester took Gaga down. I was proud, extremely proud. However, the bit.ly links reflected approximately 250 hits. Obviously more than 250 people clicked and purchased that album. The ability to scan bit.ly URLs prior to clicking allows users to type in URLs directly. Context of the URLs directs users to search content automatically.
However, Social Media Marketing is a staple of Marketing Management in today’s society and quite frankly it is what I want to be when I grow up. Even more frankly, I AM grown up and it is something that I have more than dabbled with since the days of creating your own website and implementing GuestBook 2.0. GuestBooks begat LiveJournal begat MySpace which was won over by a plague of a million glittery scripts and lost poorly. But that is not all, the world’s were split now. Napster begat MP3.com which begat LastFM which begat Pandora. MySpace begat the original College “The Facebook” which begat Facebook which begat Twitter which begat iMeem which begat Ping and then MySpace 2.0. I have witnessed all of these and then some.
“Managers can get much of the information they need via real-time observation of social media, along with listening platforms that track consumer comments on social media sites, and information provided by web analytics vendors…interactive marketers and marketing executives, should focus less on day-to-day interactions and on general brand-building through social media. Hence, reporting to those executives can take place on a per-campaign or even annual basis…Such executives should receive metrics that can help them measure the long-term financial impact of social media—incremental sales figures, for instance—instead of day-to-day reports” (Rueter, 2011).
Social Media is a powerful interactive consumer tool. Social Media should not be seen as direct sales. Social Media is customer service, information, and a way of organically selling by providing these services through blogging, competitive website interaction, forums, Twitter pages, Facebook pages, etc. Social Media creates awareness and visibility online. By having a full time Social Media Manager, the availability of real-time information, offers, and customer service interaction in multiple places other than the company website allows for the sale to make itself.
Rueter, T. (2011). How to provide the right metrics on social marketing. Internet Retailer. Retrieved March 7, 2011 from http://www.internetretailer.com/2011/03/03/how-provide-right-metrics-social-marketing
Filed under: Social Media & Marketing, analytics, social media analytics, social media marketing, social media metrics, social media sales
