Oracle makes an interesting attempt at setting social media targets here.  To quote:

Typical [goals] might be to acquire customers, engage them, then convert them. So that translates to:

1. Increase Facebook fans and Twitter followers
2. Increase comments/posting and retweets
3. Increase redemption of offers via Facebook and Twitter

While not unreasonable, we call these “second derivative metrics” here at APT (except redemption… we’ll get to that).  That is, by driving one of these metrics, perhaps that will then drive consideration, which then may drive an incremental visit/purchase.  The funny thing is that this really mimics the broadcast media world, where ad agency measures of “awareness” and “consideration” are de rigueur.

We think you can do better.

The most insightful and actionable media analytics don’t happen on derivative metrics, but focus on what matters: sales and profits.  If you are spending money, the goal ought to be to quantify the incremental returns on that spend, versus what I would have gotten anyway.

For many social networking activities designed to grow the fan base, the investment is pretty low, so the threshold for measurement should rightly be low as well.  But when you start to advertise or to make offers, it’s a different story.  These investments can often be set up as tests (at the customer level or geographically) in order ot truly understand the impact.  What you don’t want to do is rely on redemption stats, as we discuss here.

APT has worked with dozens of leading marketers on quantifying the impact of on-line advertising on offline sales. To learn more about what we found, read out case study and white paper on the topic.