Social Media is 24-7

Logical things are logical in different countries and they depend on the perception of each individual. I have encountered more than one interesting situation where the term "Culture Shock" has made it´s definition very clear. But this post isn't about that.

One thing that for sure is universally logical is the fact that a Social media or Community Managers job is not a 8-5 job.
This article published by Mashable including a study by Buddy Media came out a couple of months ago and I just returned to it today. Sometimes I like doing that, return to the articles that made an impression on me.
Now I have to be honest and say that this time schedule is not 100% correct for every brand in the world. You have to try out (and document) when your fans respond best to your content, maybe it´s not thursdays or weekends at all.
But there is some good info here that you can try out. Some makes a lot of sense and is extremely logical to me.
A person working with social media is a profile should be located in between the company and the customer. Knowing the companies goals, campaigns and assets, but communicating this on the customers terms and conditions, using their language and entering their territory. Obviously being prepared to be available off regular business hours. Even more obvious a person that truly enjoys being in front of a computer and has a genuine interest in the world of Facebook, Twitter and Blogs. A person that doesn't mind stepping away from the dinner to reply to a comment on the FB page or re-tweeting something good. Sounds harsh? Well it takes some planning, and discipline that´s for sure.

I read another article the other day that were about the simple fact that just by responding to every single comment and doing so within a short period of time, a brand is not just showing they care but they are also encouraging the behavior of interaction. Spark conversations by leading the way.
http://mashable.com/2011/04/06/facebook-engagement-data

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Social Media KPI´s

Brian Solis did some of the best sessions on this years Social Media Success summit and today I was browsing his website and found this article.
You Cant Measure What It Is You Do Not Value

Let´s talk about KPI´s today. Key Performance Indicators.
"Design outcomes and returns and integrate KPIs that capture progress, performance, and opportunities for optimization" Brian writes.
Progress, Performance and Opportunities - Increased brand awareness, Leads Sales and Loyalty I would interpret.

Return of investment could be Increase sales, Share of voice, Brand sentiment and many other things but how do we get there? How do we establish goals on the journey? What should we look for, measure, document and use to adjust or change our content and strategy so that we end up where we originally planned to?
The ROI itself is not having 150 comments per post instead of 35, that´s just an action, a result of great content but when the CEO asks you about the ROI that´s not going to be enough. But the number of comments is in fact one of many possible KPI.

Let´s lists some up here:

1. CTR (Click through Rate), Subscription rate, Unique visitors and Page views on blog. Google analytics can measure how well your blog is resonating within the community. Document each week or month the traffic. If it´s increasing - good. If not, maybe the content needs to be changed, maybe the design of the blog should be considered to change too? Lot´s of Page views but not an over whelming number of uniques? Means the content is good and people stick around to read for a while, but maybe you´re not promoting the blog well?

2. Number of comments on blog, retweets and mentions on Twitter, comments and likes on Facebook (Daily feedback in Facebook Insights), comments on discussion posts/news and groups on Linked In. Number of fans and followers, number of times people use your hashtags, fan generated posts, reviews and downloads. This is what I call engagement rates. This is also a good sign to know if you´re content is appreciated and if you´re on the right track.

3. Email subscription, registered users to group or forum and social media sharing

4. Influence. Through SocialMention or Google Alerts, measure the share of voice once per month. Share of voice in my book can be a KPI and sometimes part of the over all ROI too. If in fact one of the objective from the beginning was to Increase Brand Awareness then Share of voice is in fact not only a KPI but also a part of your ROI presentation.

"But my boss wants pure hard leads" you may think. Ok no problem but then some tracking tools will be necessary.
Google analytics and Bit.ly can help you with that. Specific campaign forms posted on blog or in the community, shorten the FB and TW links through Bit.ly and go back to track how many clicked on the links, put Google analytics on your FB Fan page, or simply ask those who contact you how they found you. Maybe add a Social Media button on the contact form?
I´m not a fan of over-selling or bombarding people with Buy-Our-Stuff messages but I would say that in at least 30% of your messages there should be a call-to-action. That´s 1 out of 3 weekly Facebook posts for example. The second post should be about something really valuable for your customer, something that can HELP him or her decide. It could be something that doesn´t even have anything to do with your company or your product but is helpful to your target customer. The third post should be FUN, fun and engaging. Hey, who doesn´t like to have a bit of fun?!

Hopefully these KPI´s can get you going in your quest to measure your social media efforts and if you do it right, tweek the content so that the KPI´s show you a positive result you should be on your way to glorious ROI too :-)

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