Loopholes to avoid when measuring performance of your Social Media Marketing Strategy

A marketing campaign as part of a business process needs to be measured. It is easy to measure performance in conventional marketing methods. However when it comes to Social Media it is still hazy to attach costs to activities and apportion results to specific actions. There are various tools and applications that can be used, but there is still debate whether what they measure is a true reflection of a return on investment of a social media campaign. Campaigns can never be similar. Objectives and results will always differ. Target audience also differs even though we may be using the same forum. With a clear strategy it is possible to identify performance measures for our Social Media Campaigns. Activity in Social Forums, may tempt us to view popular campaigns as successful. But what is success for one campaign might not be considered such for another. There are two types of popular campaigns that we need to be aware of and how they can or should affect/influence our campaigns.

Firstly we have viral marketing campaign. In Social Media, a viral campaign is one that has almost everyone sharing it.  They fall in love with the campaign and are motivated to share it with the next person. The campaign is extensively shared at not extra cost to us. Sharing of company information is good for brand awareness. However the reason this information is being shared might not be in sync with our marketing objectives. Yes, we want as many to know about us, but we just being known, is no assurance for a competitive advantage. We can only attain the competitive advantage if the objectives of our campaign are met.  A wrong interpretation of the popularity of a campaign, might lead us to conclude that we are successful when in actual fact, those sharing our information might never be converted into actual or potential future sales. I am reminded of the ALS Ice Water Bucket Challenge that once went viral. The originators of the concept, wanted to raise awareness on people living with the ALS condition and also to fund raise. I had close to 100 followers on Facebook that I saw participating in the challenge. Of all of them, there is only one who donated to the ALS foundation. The rest just did the exercise for fun or for its popularity. Partly the managed to raise awareness but I am not sure if the fundraising objective was met.

Secondly we have trending topics. Trending is a buzz word for popular topics mainly on Twitter but also applicable across all other Social Media Forums. Twitter has a column on the left side of its main page where it shows trending topics. Whilst it is possible to have our campaign trend and even appear on the front page of twitter, this might not help us meet our objectives.  Recently we had the official opposition party in South Africa run a campaign to promote their newly elected leader. He is a young vibrant man and CNN actually called the "Obama of Soweto" referring to his home area. The campaign #askmmusi was meant to get ideas from South Africans on their expectations on their new leader. That the topic was trending confirms that their brand got a boost. However whether their objectives were met might remain debatable. The interesting questions that came out of the campaign which received a lot of attention, had little to do a political leader. So if we use the matrix that the campaign was trending to measure the success of this Social Media Campaign, we might mislead ourselves.

Trending and Viral marketing can not be used as performance measures in our Social Media Marketing Strategy. But we can not ignore them. We actually need to build our campaigns around them because they give us insights into what our potential market is interested in. Should we have a campaign that trends or goes viral, we need to identify opportunities that we can capitalize on. Attention on its own will not lead to a competitive advantage.

How are you measuring your performance in Social Media Marketing? You can share with your valued comments below. Should you be in need of assistance in this regard, we are more than willing to assist.

A Campaign on Social Media Gone Viral.........

Social Media Marketing is given value by Content Marketing. Your audience have to feel the need to be part of your product through understanding and identifying with it. Content marketing can therefore be referred to also as Target Marketing. It is not everyone who will be tickled by your content. That you will only appeal to a specific group goes without telling. Clearly it will not be possible for your content to tickle everyone.  An attempt to please everyone might dilute the results of your efforts to the extent of them being labelled as spam. Therefore, your strategic intent in a Social Media campaign is to appeal to a specific target audience. The main aim is appeal for engagement. If they only view your work; that is good. If they view and comment, that is excellent; it is actually your aim. If they view and share, that is a bonus, your potential reach might end up imeasurable. At the end of the day, brand loyalty is forged with those that rave about your products.

In Social Media Marketing, you have to put a personality to your campaigns so that your audience can identify with this particular personality. A personality has unique characteristics and not everyone will identify with a particular personality. There will always be different strokes that tickle different folks. Know your target audience. Plan and execute to appeal to your target. Conventional marketing campaigns in both print and electronic media, are like a shot in the dark aimed at everyone. With Content Marketing, the target is specific and the results are not only real but are measured on real time. Analytics in Social Media are an accurate reflection and will show you even where your audience was not happy with your efforts. We might know the viewership of a particular TV program but we may never know how many liked or actually viewed our advert slotted during prime time.

Most posts that have gone viral are associated with negativity. In blogging it is possible to ride on current events and align your campaigns on such activities. But again even with current affairs, it is the bad and the ugly that always have the viral effect. For instance the current Xenophobic attacks tacking place in South Africa. Shameful and inhuman as they are, one can choose to ride their marketing campaign on them. With a well thought out campaign, your work can go viral like the gory images and videos emanating from this incidence. But again you would not want your brand to be remembered through such kind of activities or associated with such.

I do not believe that a Social Media campaign ought to go viral. I believe that our campaigns must target specific audiences with a mission to compel engagement. If we are able to have such an effect on our audiences that they feel obliged to share our content, then we might as well have expanded our market potential as further sharing can go on for a while. This however is different from the viral effect of maybe an indecent image about maybe a prominent public figure caught in a compromising position. But again, like noted earlier, somebody whose campaign has no need for morals, can ride on such an event. The different strokes is also relevant in this scenario, as there maybe some that love gossip.