Social Media KPI’s: Begin With the End in Mind

Today, we’re thrilled to have one of our valued client-partners as a guest blogger. Adriana Llames Kogelis (that’s her in the bottom row, all the way on the left, in the photo above!) is a digital media executive at Sears Holdings, a renowned industry writer and speaker who overseas social and mobile marketing across Sears, Kmart and Shop Your Way both online and in their more than 2,500 full-line and specialty retail stores. In 2011, Maven Media recognized Adriana as one of the Most Influential Women in Business. Here are Adriana’s views on Social KPI’s…

It was much easier to run a business than it is to run social media marketing for a Fortune 100 retailer. When I ran my company I looked at our operating expenses, revenue, gross margin and analyzed what levers to pull to adjust these numbers. Leading social media marketing in a major corporation requires a complex set of success metrics measured by, and dependent on, others.

That leads to the most often question I’m asked “How do you measure social media?” One day I’m going to respond, “In cups of coffee. Good day, 3 cups. Bad day, 7 cups.”

On a serious note, measuring the success of social media is far more complex than just sales and margin. On any given day, the social media team is marketing, business development, customer relations, PR, HR, legal and/or corporate communications. Developing a standardized set of measures across all those areas can be a challenge. What’s a social media executive, or manager, to do?

Take Stephen Covey’s advice: Begin With the End in Mind.

Align your social media metrics to the company’s goals. For example, if customer loyalty is important to your company, define a specific NPS (Net Promoter Score) social media metric. How do you do this? There are several companies that measure Facebook NPS and Skai is adept at aligning NPS with revenue in tandem thereby giving social media a seat at the ‘traditional’ marketing table, and adding direct value to the business goals.

Here are 5 social media KPI’s to get you started:

1. Customer Sentiment: Increase positive customer sentiment by X%
2. Customer Loyalty: Improve Net Promoter Score (NPS) by X pts or X%
3. Revenue: Achieve $X in attributable social commerce
4. Visits: Drive X visits to companyname.com site from social media sites
5. Customer Engagement: Deliver X% engagement rate on social media sites

These KPI’s are easy to understand for senior executives in the C-Suite at any major company because they tie to customers, dollars and website traffic. One last tip; add in year-over-year growth to really make your metrics shine.