Measure Twice, Tweet Once: Measuring for Social Media Success

There’s so much to consider when using Social Media in the business-to-business marketing world.  

This post puts the spotlight on Twitter metrics of success. Facebook and LinkedIn are entirely different animals when one considers measuring success.

Previous blog postings have addressed Twitter Etiquette, and late last year I even took a look at what the 1970-s art house band Talking Heads would have said about Twitter.

This time, though, it’s inspiring to consider the following:  How do you know if a Twitter program is effective?

Wise marketing folks are often posting about this subject, such as this terrific post from those smarty pants at eConsultancy.

Quality vs. Quantity

It’s tempting to measure success by the number of Twitter followers an account has acquired, but that isn’t a complete view of success.

Yet it is fun to watch followers grow (heck, I even wrote a limerick when one of the Twitter programs I managed crossed 500 followers!).

If social media marketing is about engaging and connecting, then it follows that the best strategy is ongoing measurement of  "relevant engagement" on Twitter.

How to Assess Relevent Engagement? 

How can one measure  social media engagement?

One handy approach is to monitor the amount of Tweets that get Retweeted by others, especially followers related to a particular topic.  It is easy to track mentions and direct messages over a 30 day period to establish a benchmark - then monitor growth over time.

The Twitter List

Twitter Lists are critical to monitor. 

How many folks include your Twitter handle in a list?  How many relevant lists follow you?  

Being included in a relevant list by another Twitter account is a great measure of engagement and connection.  For instance, if you manage a Twitter account for a personal trainer, there are many Twitter lists out there that single out those in the personal training arena. Being include in a Twitter list is a great indication of engagement.

5 Tools for Measurement

1. If you manage your Twitter account using TweetDeck or HootSuite, it is easy to set up the interface to quickly track mentions, retweets and direct mentions if folks use the @sign and your full Twitter handle.
2. Search:  A simple Twitter Search monitors those tweeting about a company especially if others don't use @ sign (that's usually what happens) 
3.  Retweet Rank – as the name states, this easy tool monitors Retweets 
4.  Tweet Cloud:  Analyzes the content of a month's worth of tweets (or any timeframe) to analyze whether your tweets are 'on topic" - a really great tool for monitoring content over time.  
5. TwitterSheep offers a clear indication of engagement, depicting visually how relevant the bios of your followers are.  Take just a second to analyze the bios of your followers, when searching under relevant terms (like exercise, personal health, etc....when using the personal trainer example from above)  

Remember the old saying:  you are what you measure! There are likely other great tools that measure social media engagement.  Please share them here!