SXSW Rewind: How to measure social media
Mar 17, 13
Over the next few days, I’ll be sharing some session recaps and learnings from my trip to SXSW last week with 20 of my FH colleagues. This post stemmed from a session by Nichole Kelly called The ROI of Social Media. For a deep dive into all of our SXSW coverage and our BlackBox activation at SXSW, check out http://blackbox.fleishmanhillard.com.
I should have brought a ruler to SXSW. Or a tape measure. Or maybe even a protractor. Yep, a protractor. Why?
Because no matter the topic, social media measurement has come up in almost every panel I’ve attended this year at SXSW. It’s unlikely that any of the above tools would successfully measure social media, but in the current social media measurement frenzy, someone could successfully spin a tale as to how each of them might apply.
Despite the hype surrounding the measurement topic, we as communicators must give ourselves a chance when it comes to the social media ROI conversation. Perhaps an important step is this pledge:
I, being a thoughtful marketing communicator of sound mind,
Will do my best to be taken seriously while talking to the senior executives about social media.
I promise I will no longer use the terms ROE or ROR in an attempt to be clever,
Because those terms make CEOs and CMOs think I don’t know what I’m talking about.
I pledge that from now on when I say ROI,
I will include something about sales, revenue, or profit in the same sentence,
And I will no longer introduce a different letter of the alphabet after “RO,”
As that just further confuses the leadership of corporate America.
Now that our pledge is over, let’s return our attention to social media analytics. We have many useful metrics and measures at our disposal. Many matter quite a lot and will help us develop and manage our communities better. But many don’t measure ROI. Just as you wouldn’t call a ruler a tape measure, we need to stop insisting that all of our social media measurement tools are discerning ROI.
Who am I?
I'm a business communications consultant at Fleishman-Hillard. I used to call myself a PR professional, but I don't use that term anymore because people hear PR and they think only media relations.We do a lot more than that at Fleishman-Hillard Kansas City (FHKC). I specialize in social media, but am trying hard to brush up on my measurement and analytics. Every strategic consulting conversation should start with your business goals and how communications can help you reach them. My motto: "Your brand is what your customers say it is." 
