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A company must analyze the kind of relationships it is building with consumers across all of its social media platforms to ensure that they are aligned with the overall metrics and targets for social media performance as mentioned in the inputs section of this process. Each social media platform generally has its own analytics dashboard, which provides a variety of information to a company about its social media activities. As each of these dashboards displays different types of metrics depending on the platform, a company must have a thorough understanding of these metrics so that it can compare the effectiveness of the various platforms. Such a comparison can be done by using metrics that are easily understood and that can be derived from data provided by the dashboards, if the metrics are not already presented. Some important metrics are as follows:

1. Number of Shares—This metric represents the number of times content provided by the company is shared by its customers or subscribers. Consumers share content they like or find useful; thus, a high number of shares indicates that a large number of customers or potential customers perceive the company as helpful and knowledgeable and, by extension, may be more likely to purchase the company’s products or services.

2. Number of Replies and Comments—This metric represents the number of replies and comments that the company’s content has generated. These replies and comments may be directed to the company asking for more information or providing feedback; they may also be discussions among the target audience members who are inspired by the content that the company has shared. A high number of replies and comments generally indicate a strong engagement with the target audience. However, care must be taken to ensure that negative and irrelevant comments and replies are addressed promptly and appropriately.

3. Number of Clicks—This metric represents the number of clicks on the links within content shared by the company. These links may take users to the company’s website, to a company page within a social media platform, or to a resource or asset shared by the company. Such clicks indicate that users considered the company’s updates interesting enough to click on links within those updates.

In addition to monitoring the above metrics on a quantitative basis, it is also important to watch for shared content or consumer responses that spread to an abnormally high number of users. This process is referred to as “going viral.” If such content or responses reflect a positive consumer perception, a sudden increase in leads and purchases for the company can be the result, and only if a company is tracking its social media activity closely would it know the reason for the sudden increase and respond accordingly. On the other hand, if such content and responses reflect a negative consumer perception, the company’s relationship with its customers and potential customers may suffer significant damage.

Visit www.smstudy.com to learn more about social media analysis and its metrics.

Analyzing key metrics related to reputation in social media is important to determine the effectiveness of social media campaigns as well as to discover gaps that need to be addressed. In addition, as companies generally use more than one social media platform, it is also important to compare how effective each of the platforms is in building a company’s online reputation. For this, metrics that apply to all social media platforms should be used. For example, almost every social media platform also has a feature that allows users or viewers to express their approval of content. The most common way to express this is through action buttons such as Like, Share, Follow, Upvote, Downvote etc.

Another example that applies to almost every social media platform is a feature that allows users to share content provided by the company. Tracking the number of shares can help compare engagement across platforms. The share feature allows companies to reach out to a much larger audience than the one they initially targeted. For example, if a company promotes a particular piece of content through e-mail marketing to one hundred users, the reach is usually limited only to the recipients of the e-mail. However, if the company shares the same piece of content to the one hundred users following its company page on a social media platform, the exposure can be much wider. In this case, if ten of these users share the promoted content to their contacts within the social media channel, and assuming that they each have an average of one hundred contacts, then the company’s content would reach an additional 1,000 users (100 × 10). The fact that these 1,000 users did not receive promoted content directly from the company but received the content after it had been shared by a contact of theirs serves as a recommendation and significantly improves the company’s reputation across a wider audience. Therefore, companies should track not only the customers they initially target but also the much wider audience that actually receives their content. Most of the popular social media platforms have analytics tools that allow companies to track both sets of audiences, and knowing the wider audience can help a company better plan its reputation management activities.

It is also important to understand which segments of users are more active in promoting and sharing a company’s social media activity and updates. If those segments are the ones that a company considers as its best targets, then it can conclude that its updates are striking a chord with the right audience. If, however, its updates are shared by users who are unlikely to become customers, then the company needs to investigate whether the content it is sharing is relevant to its target audience or whether its targeting parameters are correct. Failing to conduct this analysis may result in a company meeting its short-term social media targets, such as achieving a certain number of likes or shares, but failing to meet its overall revenue targets for social media.

Here are two examples of Social Media Reputation Metrics Analysis:

• Content mobility and engagement is one of the primary metrics of social media reputation management. For example, a company that has a presence on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, and a company blog might measure its social media reputation using all or some of the following:

• Facebook likes and shares
• YouTube video likes and shares
• Instagram likes and comments
• Twitter retweets
• Pinterest repins
• Blog article shares and comments

• A furniture company, which is operating in multiple cities and promoting its latest designs through social media, may observe that the overall likes and shares of its campaigns are as expected, but a significant percentage of shares is coming from cities, or even countries, where the company does not have a presence at all. This may happen if the company has not defined its target audience correctly while promoting its content. Thus, the company may waste money on these campaigns without earning the expected revenue.

With the world breathlessly awaiting the next new super child of business, the hot topics in the dreams of entrepreneurs everywhere are innovation and disruption. Yet, the topic that will make the difference between a super child and an abandoned orphan will be market opportunity.

“An analysis of market opportunities is important because businesses operate in dynamic and constantly evolving environments, so understanding the changing landscape and trends that are impacting the business helps in developing an effective marketing strategy,” says Marketing Strategy, book one of the SMstudy® Guide series. This is true of established businesses developing innovations as well as startups pushing the envelope.

 There’s an adage that says “we make our own opportunities.” The first place to look then is inside one’s self. To a significant extant that is true of business opportunities as well. That is why it is important for a company exploring new innovations to look closely at “the concepts related to analyzing the internal capabilities of [the] company as well as the factors of the external environment that impact the business,” according to Marketing Strategy. In other words, starting a new venture is a good time to contemplates one’s corporate navel.

The Guide recommends using the first two parts of a SWOT analysis—determine strengths and weaknesses—for this introspection. This step is especially necessary for entrepreneurs, who are often in the process of creating the company that will develop and deliver the innovation or disruption. These first parts of a SWOT analysis can be tailored to tell the innovator which strengths should be incorporated into the new organization and which ones should be avoided. Instead of asking, “what are our company’s strengths based on past successes?” the entrepreneur can ask, “what strengths do companies that have succeeded with similar products and services possess? And how can our new company get them?”

Marketing Strategy identifies four inputs that can aid in this process: senior management direction and insights, organizational capabilities, assumptions and constraints and existing market research reports. Obtaining senior management insights may seem impossible for a new company with no senior executives; however, innovation does not happen in a vacuum. That’s why both Thomas Edison and Alexander Bell had to defend themselves against more than one hundred patent suits. There are sources for expert opinion and insights.

Organizational capabilities will have to be tweaked again for entrepreneurs starting companies. Instead of taking an inventory of existing capabilities—in all areas such as finance, operations, human resources, location, intellectual property and organizational culture—startups must determine what capabilities they will need in each of these areas.

“An assumption can be defined as anything that is considered to be true without proof,” says Marketing Strategy. While assumptions are necessary when making plans that deal with the uncertainty of the future, “assumptions related to Sales and Marketing should be clearly thought through and explicitly stated, validated and agreed upon before deciding on any specific strategy or marketing plan.” Assumptions are the home of unrealistic expectations for many innovators and visionaries. They should be agreed upon with extreme caution, clarity and common sense.

Most industries have numerous associations that produce researched reports on current developments and market trends. For example, project management has the Project Management Institute’s Pulse of the Profession report. Governments and institutions of higher learning issue reports almost constantly.

Whatever information the next super child needs, it is out there. And if it has to do with sales and marketing, it is available from SMstudy.

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