Reach. We're talking about the people who see and potentially can interact with your content, message, product, and/or staff. Given social media's traffic and time spent, it's important for marketers to have a presence there to expand their audience. Further, social media provides ways to disperse your message efficiently. Among the specific metrics to monitor are visitors, fans, followers, social graph of these people, influence of these people, and time spent. While longer term, it's critical to do more than just count the number of people, initially it's good to start with these numbers, like with initial impressions in traditional advertising.
Branding. As social media continues to evolve, so do the ways that companies use social media marketing to build, support, and expand their brand. Through its ability to engage with prospects and customers and provide a wide variety of content in different formats, social media marketing supports and enhances a broad range of branding and intent to purchase metrics. It's been used by high profile, expensive campaigns like Old Spice to low budget ones like Orabrush.
Actions. What do you want your prospects, customers, and/or the public to do? Have you included a call-to-action targeted to those actions and a related, trackable promotion code? Bear in mind that these actions don't necessarily have to be sales. Get prospects to take the next step towards purchase. Don't overlook other social media related actions such as link sharing and bookmarking. These shared items translate to earned media impressions.
Costs. Expenses for social media marketing, especially early in the adoption phase, can be difficult to assess especially if it's handled by existing staff who don't track their time and/or use existing resources that are closely integrated with other expenses. For example, your advertising agency does additional work but its cost is included in the television ad creation bill.
Reputation issues avoided. In today's real-time, 24/7 communications world where everyone's a potential publisher, it's critical to have some form of social media monitoring in place to send an alert when and wherever appropriate engagement may be necessary to avert a larger public issue. Social media provides the mechanism for quick response without the need for crisis management. Having an established social media presence provides the opportunity to minimize potential issues. Consider social media marketing a cost avoidance to preserve your reputation and brand.
