Social media metrics for the modern practitioner

The following tips came from this excellent article that is absolute must read.   Best Social Media Metrics: Conversation, Amplification, Applause, Economic Value

The author proposes for useful metrics for determining the vlaue of your social media activities.  These metrics aren't currently built in to other reporting suites but are easy to calculate manually (or you could even design a custom reporting system for yourself using something like MS Access or FileMaker).

Four (New) Social Media Metrics:

1. Conversation Rate

Conversation Rate = # of Audience Comments (or Replies) Per Post

Achieving a high conversation rate requires a deeper understanding of who your audience is, what your brand attributes are, what you are good at, what value you can add to your followers and the ecosystem you participate in.  By boosting your conversation rate you’re building your own watering hole in the digital universe and have meaningful conversations with your audience.

2. Amplification Rate

Amplification is the rate at which your followers take your content and share it through their network.  Amplification allows you to reach more users than you could solely through your own network (simply due to follower, friend, or other limits in the medium).

On Twitter: 

Amplification = # of Retweets Per Tweet

On Facebook, Google Plus:

Amplification = # of Shares Per Post

On a blog, YouTube: 

Amplification = # of Share Clicks Per Post (or Video)

(Share clicks as in number of times your social media buttons were used to spread the content.)

Calculating this metric allows you to measure what pieces of content (type) cause amplification (allow your social contributions to spread to your 2nd, or even 3rd, level network).  This metric also provides insight on the times and geo locations and topics and things that cause amplification.

3. Applause Rate

Measure applause ….

One Twitter:                    Applause Rate = # of Favorite Clicks Per Post

On Facebook:                           Applause Rate = # of Likes Per Post

On Google Plus:               Applause Rate = # of +1s Per Post

On a Blog, YouTube:                  Applause Rate = # of +1s and Likes Per Post (or video)

Applause rate tells you what the audience likes (to use the Facebook terminology) and what they don't. You get a much deeper understanding of what your audience likes so much that it will +1 your content (or contribution) and allow for that to be then shown to others in their social graph.

4. Economic Value

The actions that social media campaigns spark among consumers translate to Macro and Micro Conversions (which are further explained through that link)!  And with macro and micro conversions you can measure Economic Value!

On all social media channels: 

Economic Value = Sum of Short and Long Term Revenue and Cost Savings

Social media participation, done right, adds value to the company's bottom-line. Some of it can't be computed.  The best tools to begin using to measure economic value of online activities are Google Analytics, Omniture, WebTrends, CoreIBMInsights, etc.

Four metrics to prove your work is working

Conversation Rate. Amplification Rate. Applause Rate. Economic Value. Four simple measures that get you to focus on the right thing from a social media participation perspective, help you understand how well you are doing at it, and quantify the business impact.

The dashboard is available here: 

Download: Social Media Metrics Dashboard. Adapt it to your business.