Zoetica Media

  • Home
  • Services
  • Speaking
  • About
  • Resources
  • Blog
  • Contact

Commonsense Social Media Measurement Part 4: A’s of Social Media Measurement: Attention, Attitude, Action

December 7, 2010 by Kami Huyse

Share this:
Twitter0
Facebook0
Google+0
LinkedIn0

 

 

Three As of Measurement

When it comes to social media measurement, one of the hardest things for most organizations to determine is where to put their limited resources and focus. All measurable objectives for online media should be consolidated to a dashboard that is frequently updated and can show where online efforts stand at a glance. You can use free ones like the new Glert’s, currently in Beta, which puts free Google Alerts into a dashboard; or you can use paid services like the Do It Yourself Dashboard by KD Paine and Partners.

It can also be as simple as a PowerPoint document or Spreadsheet with numbers and goals updated on a monthly basis. Entering these numbers into an Excel spreadsheet allows an organization to analyze the numbers for a period of time and to add other data, such as sales numbers.

I like to break down the types of measurement into three buckets in order to more clearly see the impact on the organization.

The Three As’s of Social Media Measurement

  • Attention: The overall volume of interest, these include fans, traffic and other analytics
  • Attitude: Overall sentiment and relationship measures
  • Action: Business results of online outreach

These categories correspond to the more traditional measures of communication: Outcomes, Outtakes and Outputs. As you can see in this paper by Dr. Walter K. Lindenmann Guidelines for Measuring the Effectiveness of PR Programs and Activities.

In today’s post, I am going to start with the measurement of action and will circle back to Attention and Attitude next week.

Measuring Action

Probably the most important and least measured part of a social media campaign is the action people take as a result. This is where campaigns can be tied to key performance indicators (KPIs) or other organizational goals for action. Return on investment can also be measured in terms of actions.

Business measures can include things such as registrations for conferences, sales leads, hiring, store traffic and reduction in customer-service costs. For nonprofits, business goals include donations, votes (for politicians), new volunteers, return volunteers, volume of donations and the median amount of money per donation.

One useful example is a research study conducted by Altimeter and WetPaint called EngagementdB, which sought to connect key business results to social media engagement. The study looked at the engagement in social media by 100 top brands as measured by BusinessWeek / Interbrand “Best Global Brands 2008” rankings and correlated that engagement with one of the biggest KPIs for many organizations ¾ revenue and profit.

 

Engagement Graph

The study found brands that were highly engaged in a number of social media and networking channels showed stronger revenue and profit than those that were not. Moreover, it found that those that were not active in social networking performed worse in all categories than those that were. The correlation is striking, because it indicates the need for an open mindset of listening and responding to the needs of customers, donors or other stakeholders for a company or organization to be successful.

In his very popular “Basics of Social Media ROI” presentation, Olivier Blanchard of BrandBuilder Marketing outlines a process to tie social media activities to revenue and cost savings that includes looking at sales data overlaid with social media activities and campaigns. He recommends looking at F.R.Y., which is frequency, or number of transactions per month; reach, or number of new customers; and yield, or total transactions.

Olivier Blanchard Basics Of Social Media Roi

View more presentations from Olivier Blanchard.

For example, in a timeline, overlay basic sales data with social media activities, the results of your monitoring and any market research, then look at the data for areas where they seem to rise in concert (commonly known as deltas in the measurement world). This kind of measurement is best done for a significant period of time to give the best results, and it can demonstrate which social media activities and campaigns seem to be having the best effect.

If an organization noticed that more lively chatter on its Facebook page usually means better attendance at weekend events, it might consider timing communication or promotions for maximum effectiveness. Determine what’s most important to the business, and start measuring that right away. More variables can always be added, and it’s better to start small than not to start at all.

But what about organizations that don’t have sales, you might ask? A nonprofit is a good example. For a nonprofit you might want to look at how often current supporters are giving, and compare online and offline donors to see how their rates compare. You could then compare this to any campaigns you were running to see if there was an uptick in giving during those times compared to other times. What other measures can you think of?

You can check out more about measuring social media, including some case studies, in my presentation, Prove It! Tools and Techniques for Measuring Social Media.

Here are all the posts from the Commonsense Social Media Measurement series:

  • Part I: A Commonsense Approach to Social Media Measurement
  • Part 2: Setting SMART Objectives
  • Part 3: Measurement as a Diagnostic Tool
  • Part 4: The 3 As of Social Media Measurement
  • Part 5: What Is Your Measurement Personality Style?

The above is draft material for a chapter on measurement that Geoff Livingstonkindly asked me to write in his new book, Welcome to the Fifth Estate (the follow up to Now Is Gone, which is almost out of print). Comments may be used in the final edition. You can download the first drafted chapter of his new edition — Welcome to the Fifth Estate — for free.

Filed Under: Measurement Tagged With: social media

About Kami Huyse

Kami Watson Huyse, CEO of Zoetica, is passionate about great communication. Working in Public Relations since 1994, and blogging since 2005, she has seen trends come and go, but one thing has stayed the same – people are looking for ways to authentically connect. She loves to connect with readers, so leave a comment or follow @kamichat on Twitter and connect there.

Trackbacks

  1. Media for the Modern Age says:
    March 18, 2014 at 8:58 pm

    […] her blog, CEO of public relations firm, Zoetica, Kami Huyse separates the elements of social media […]

  2. The Three A’s | Good Girl Charley says:
    November 14, 2014 at 8:00 pm

    […] additional information accessed from Zoetica […]

  3. Bring your A game | Vince Kanasoot says:
    March 19, 2015 at 6:17 pm

    […] Here are the definitions of the three “A”s, according to Zoetica: […]

  4. The Three A’s Of Social Media ROI | Maron's Musings says:
    March 19, 2015 at 10:40 pm

    […] easy way to think about these concepts and their impact on ROI is summarized wonderfully by Zoetica‘s Three […]

  5. Measuring the Three A’s in Social Media: Attention, Attitude and Action | Kristy Hodgson Communication + Design says:
    April 5, 2015 at 7:08 am

    […] about social media measurement and its impact on ROI is through Attention, Attitude, and Action. Zoetica summarizes each of the Three A’s […]

Subscribe to get the newsletter and premiums

Enter your email to subscribe:

  • LinkedIn
  • RSS
  • Twitter

About Zoetica

Zoetica Swish SmallWelcome to Zoetica! We are an experienced team of communicators led by Kami Huyse who are dedicated to teaching you how to bring your communication to life with sound strategy, community building and solid success measures. Check out our blog, Zoetica Talks, browse our Resources, and check out our Sevices.We can't wait to get to know you better.

Recent Posts

  • Which Social Media Platforms to Use for Business in 2023
  • Creative Professionals, Get Ready for the Artificial Intelligence Takeover
  • The 5 Social Media Trends That Will Shape the Industry in 2023
  • The 5-Part Visibility Plan That Will Help Promote and Grow Your Business
  • Are You Ready for AI in Creative Work?

Zoetica in the News

5 Tools to Measure (and Manage) Reputation in Complex Environment PR News Byline

2014 trends for public relations, marketing and social media | Business | Kentucky.com (mobile mention) 

Digital PR & Social Media Guidebook – Contributing Author

How Communicators Can Get Started with PR Measurement, PR News Mention

Proving PR’s Value in the Age of ROI—How to Tie Results to Corporate Objectives | Bulldog Reporter (Speaker)

A Gnawing Crisis in PR: Measuring The ROI on Social Media Channels, PR News Byline

Named as one of AGBeat's top 50 industry influencers in 2014

Will Houston B2B companies answer the social media call? - Houston Business Journal

Social Media Measurement Twitter Chat: Evaluating Impact of Social Media on Foundation Outcomes (with tweets) · RWJF (Moderator)

Top 100 Social Media Power Influencers in Houston 2013

Named as one of 30 PR Experts You Should Follow on Twitter by e-releases

BusinessWire Congrats for Making the Top 100 Women on Twitter

Posts by Topic

Zoetica Talks

 

#SMBHOU

Influencer Outreach

Best Ranked

Measurement

Book Shelf

Nonprofit and CSR

Community

Online Ethics

CoolTools

Social Media Tactics

Crisis

Guidelines

How To

Social Networks

Humor

Speaking

Trends

Strategy

Latest Tweets

Tweets by @kamichat
© Zoetica, LLC | Disclaimer | Terms & Conditions | Privacy Policy

Copyright © 2023 - Zoetica Media · designed/developed by Petersen Media Group