RESULTS were certainly a common area of interest/concern as it relates to Social Media. How to measure results is a widely discussed topic among Social Media Experts (if there truly are any), Marketing, PR, Communications Groups, etc. This discussion will be going on throughout all of 2010 and probably beyond. After all, measurable results are still a widely discussed topic for most forms of traditional media. We can’t say we have a definitive answer for the standards by which to measure success for this new form of marketing. But we can say is that one traditional marketing result consistently ranked high by accomplished users of social media is – WORD-of-MOUTH.
Why? Because Word-of-Mouth marketing is so “universally understood” and “universally accepted” that everyone “gets it” and what it means and how it works. That is a great place to start the discussion on results. And here’s the kicker, it’s not incidental. Social media is ALL ABOUT Word-of-Mouth. It is about “connecting” and getting people to “follow” what you do. To take an interest in you and your product/service, and then “talk about” you and what you are doing. This is the true power of Social Media.
So how do you measure Word-of-Mouth today? Guess what, the same as you’ve been doing all along. Nothing has changed with the advent of Social Media marketing. The only differences are the tools you use to deliver the marketing messages and the ways you track how people found you. And the best part is that even if you aren’t that good at tracking where all your Word-of-Mouth referrals came from, do you really care that much if your revenues and profit are rising? Didn’t think so.
