There are so many tools out there for social media monitoring and reporting - it seems there’s some new offer in my inbox every day. Sometimes I’m asked for my opinion as to which product is best and the usual answer is (you guessed it) “it depends.” Mainly it depends on what data is most important to your social media efforts. With any type of ongoing report that will be shared within an organization, the challenge is not providing enough data, but limiting the data to the metrics that matter most.
Start by considering your objectives. Are you following social media channels in order to:
- determine your reach and exposure in key social media circles?
- engage in active reputation management?
- track the success of your social media activities?
Now sharpen this focus and start sketching a list of report items you’d like to see. Once you’ve made that list, you’ve started defining the requirements for the right reporting tool(s).
It’s quite possible that no one software tool will pull together all the data you need. For example, Radian6 has some great tools for following video sharing sites, blogs and other public web properties, but cannot give me any visibility to what happens behind password-protected sites like Facebook and LinkedIn .
Our needs are best suited to a custom report that includes data from LinkedIn, Facebook, Eloqua, Google Analytics and Twitter. We’re populating the first draft of this report and no doubt it will be subject to change and many ongoing updates, but here are the basic needs we’ve started with.
LinkedIn:
- number of company profile views
- number of group members (for any LinkedIn groups we create)
- number of group posts
- number of answers (to questions posted on LinkedIn by Quarry employees)
- number of answer responses
Facebook:
- number of fans
- number of comments
Twitter:
- number of tweets
- number of followers
- number of @replies
- number of mentions (through search)
Idea Exchange (our monthly email newsletter)
- number sent
- number opened (and open rate)
- number of click-throughs
IdeaExchange (the blog) – monthly stats
- number of unique visitors
- number of visits
- Top traffic sources
- Top 10 keywords
- Top 10 content items
As we build out more video content through channels like Youtube, and develop more webinars, new metrics will be added.
Sure, it’s pretty basic, but in my opinion a good report can be quickly scanned and has enough meaningful metrics to allow you to spot interesting activity or opportunities.
How does this match your social media marketing interests? What type of data is most important to you?
Nov 28th, 2009 9:00 am
Great blog entry Dan! I wanted to add that another great tool for monitoring social media is one called SM2. Like Radian 6 and most of the offerings in this space it allows you to see what the social media world is saying about your brand, company, or competitors. It also gives you a quick assessment of the sentiment of those posts.
There are actually quite a few companies competing in this space, all offering very similar features. Along with Radian8 companies such as Filtrbox, Scoutlabs, Cymfony are some of the leaders.
The reason I like SM2 is the ease of use. It offers the same core analysis and reporting features as its competitors but does it with a simple and easy to use interface.
This is a new market with a lot of companies trying to establish leadership. No doubt we will see many drop-out or be bought by their competitors in the not too distant future. At the end of the day, I suspect that usability will be one of the important factors that determine who comes out on top.
Nov 30th, 2009 10:04 am
Thanks Gary. It’s definitely a busy category - tough to keep track of all the new services popping up. I have heard good things about SM2 and am looking forward to learning more.