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Social media measurement: three good questions

June 8, 2010 By Leave a Comment

I had the pleasure this morning of interviewing Chris Frank, vice president of global marketplace insights for American Express, on his advice on how to measure and glean insights from social media. Chris’ two wise mantras:   “less counting, more evaluating” and “focus less on the means (“the buzz’) and more on the ends (outcomes like changing perceptions, intention and action.)

When you’re looking at your social media data, Chris suggests asking smart question to evalauate what’s going on and what it means to your strategy. Three questions I found especially interesting when looking at the data:

  1. What surprised us?
  2. So what?  What should we think about doing differently based on what the data shows.
  3. What is our intent with social media?  What does the data tell us about how well we’re doing (or not) in pursuit of that intent?

Filed Under: Research, Social media strategy Tagged With: , , , ,

Measurement: counting is easy, evaluating is hard

April 17, 2010 By Leave a Comment

How to measure social media? Christopher Frank, vice president of global insights for American Express, shared his perspectives at this week’s Conference Board Social Media Meet Up.

“Counting is easy, evaluating the data is hard,” he emphasized.  “We don’t lack for data but we lack for asking the right questions so that the data can help us make decisions.”

Social media is like any other data stream, he said, and what you do with that data is the same as measuring other marketing programs: evaluate, assess relative to competitors and track over time. The questions are the same, too.

  1. What kind of impact are we trying to have?
  2. At what level do we hold people accountable?
  3. What time frame should we look at?
  4. What attributes should we be using, e.g., service ratios, engagement rations
  5. What do we want to track?

“Marketers spend much too much time on tracking the means — the buzz — and not enough on the ends — perceptions, intentions, advocacy.”

Frank’s ins and outs of measurment:

In’s

  • Intent
  • Input
  • Investment

Out’s

  • Output (e.g., buzz)
  • Outtake (advocacy)
  • Outcome (proactive change)

Filed Under: Social media strategy Tagged With: , , , ,