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Thursday, July 9, 2015

Can You Quantify Social Media Engagement?

Forbes, in a May 2015 Kyle Wong article titled What is the Value of Social Media Engagement, stated that there's a near consensus that social media marketing is valuable because:

           "it allows companies to directly engage with their customers, build brand presence,              and ultimately sell more products."
Who wouldn't want to be a part of that process?
CPS' Social Media Wall - Mountain House, CA

Today, almost every business is jumping into (or on) the social media bandwagon but there have always been lingering questions, says Wong, as to how to measure social ROI.

Initially, social media metrics were all about likes and followers.  Forbes suggests it has moved beyond this first set of measurement tools to many different metrics ranging from "profits per customer" to social media specific items such as followers and friends.  

Gary Vaynerchuk, founder of VaynerMedia, goes on to say word of mouth is a currency that affects the bottom line and social media allows word of mouth to scale.  He suggests it makes sense that companies want to measure conversations about their brand.

Perhaps another way to look at evaluating conversations is to incorporate them into a branded marketing process -- and measuring those results.  Take a look at CPS' Social Media Wall located in a new home information center incorporating traditional marketing content (copy and images) with curated, social media conversations. Visitors help the developer "tie social media to business outcomes" as they engage with the product, create marketing messages for the next set of visitors and make purchase decisions.