“Is anybody listening?”

Social Media Measurement –

the Momentum Builds

Clip News SeminarAthens,

28th September, 2011

 

  

Barry LeggetterExecutive Director

The International Association for Measurement and Evaluation of Communication

(AMEC)

AMEC is the global standards body in communications programme measurement

A question to start

•How many people in the room measure social media in some way?

•How many of those raising their hand are clients?

Global trends

• Social media usage involves mind blowing statistics

• Its language can also be confusing to clients

Global trends – and huge numbers!

• 347 million or 73% of European Internet users use social networks

• 50% of social network users are connected to brands • People become a fan on Facebook because they like the

product, not because of the advertising • 36% posted content about a brand on social networks • 61% of employed social network users are proud about

their employer, but only 19% share stories on social media

• 33% of employees can’t access social network sites at work

Source: Insites Consulting

Rest of the World

US

34%

66%

87%

13%

The US Is No Longer the Center of the Online Universe

US Internet Population vs. Rest of the World Distribution of Worldwide Internet Audience

Europe

26.6%

8.7%

41.2%

Asia Pacific

NorthAmerica

14.8%

8.7%

July 2011

Latin America

Middle East - Africa

1996 2011

In 1996, 2/3 of the world’s Internet population was in the US, yet today Asia Pacific is the largest region with over 41% of the population.

Many emerging regions are likely to bypass old modes, skipping dial-up to go straight to broadband, making multimedia, video, and collaborative content immediately accessible.Early adoption of mobile web in addition to PC web will likely be popular in many of these high-

Source: comScore World Metrix, July 2011© comScore, Inc. Proprietary and Confidential. 3

growth areas.

Google+: The Future of Social Networking?

13© comScore, Inc. Proprietary and Confidential.© comScore, Inc. Proprietary and Confidential.

Source: comScore Voices: Google+ Off to a Fast Start with 20 Million Visitorsin 21 Days13

Google+: The Future of Social Networking?

In the first 21 days of its existence, Google+ visitation grew 561%.

As of July 19, Google+ saw just under 20 million visitors worldwide.

Growth between week 1 and week 2 was 82%.

Just over a quarter (27%) of visitors were from the US.

The Communication Challenges – 1. Ownership

The challenges – channel ownership

• The first challenge is ownership of the channel • PR and media intelligence companies need to stake their

claim• This doesn’t have to be exclusive – other disciplines

want a share (advertising, brand, marketing)• The challenge to PR professionals is without

understanding social media, it will lose PR budget to other disciplines

 

The Challenges - confusion

ON THE ONE HANDAMEC clients say say that measuring social media is important

BUT.....only 11%11% of clients said they actually carried out social media measurement

Source: AMEC International Business Monitor, May, 2011

There is no magic bullet

Why do we need standards?

• Social media has moved beyond the experimentation phase

• Clients need formal standardized metrics to evaluate progress, and justify PR and marketing spend

• It’s time to push past proprietary systems and embrace a move to standards

• The best metrics for social media are unlikely to come from a single agency or single specialist research agency

• We need measurement standards that help us establish We need measurement standards that help us establish consistent measures of social media performanceconsistent measures of social media performance

The challenges - the move to standards

• DefinitionsEarned/uncontrolled metrics

• Share of voice• Messaging• Sentiment

Paid/controlled metrics

• Likes• Followers• Registrations• Web traffic/engagement

What others are doing internationally

• Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) Best Practices Definitions of Social Ad vs Behaviourally Targeted Use of data Privacy

• Web Analytics Association (WAA) Social Media Standards Definitions & Standards for grabs, bookmarks, click backs, posts &

comments.

• Advertising Research Foundation (ARF) definition of listening.

• Society for New Communications Research (SNCR)• AMECAMEC, Institute for PR and Council of PR Firms

Barcelona Principles was the launch pad

• The communications landscape is changing rapidly • A lack of clear standards and approaches to PR

measurement results in the profession not always being taken seriously it doesn’t count unless you can count it

• The Barcelona Principles Barcelona Principles was created by AMEC as a way of bringing the worldwide communications industry together

Barcelona Principles of PR Measurement

1. Importance of Goal Setting and Measurement

2. Measuring the Effect on Outcomes is Preferred to Measuring Outputs

3. The Effect on Business Results Can and Should Be Measured Where Possible

4. Media Measurement Requires Quantity and Quality

5. AVEs are not the Value of Public Relations

6.6. Social Media Can and Should be Social Media Can and Should be Measured Measured

7. Transparency and Replicability are Paramount to Sound Measurement

Barcelona Principle #6

• Social media measurement is a discipline, not a tool; but there is no “single metric”

• Organizations need clearly defined goals and outcomes for social media

• Media content analysis should be supplemented by web and search analytics, sales and CRM data, survey data and other methods

• Evaluating quality and quantity is critical, just as it is with conventional media

• Measurement must focus on “conversation” and “communities” not just “coverage”

Awareness Knowledge Interest Support Action

Public Relations Activity

• Content creation (e.g. assets created, videos/podcasts)

• Social media engagement (e.g. blog posts, blogger events, blogger briefings, Twitter posts, community site posts & events)

• Influencer engagement

• Stakeholder engagement

• Events/speeches

Intermediary Effect

• Impressions/Target audience impressions

• Earned media site visitors/day

• % share of conversation

• Video views• Prominence

• Key message alignment [traditional & social media]

• Accuracy of facts• % share of

conversation

• Expressed opinions of interest

• Social network Followers

• Retweets/Shares/ Linkbacks

• % share of conversation

• Endorsement by journalists or influencers

• Rankings on industry lists

• Expressed opinions of support

• Social network Fans• Likes

Target Audience Effect

• Unaided awareness• Aided awareness• Owned media site

visitors per day• Social network

channel visitors

• Knowledge of company/product attributes and features

• Brand association and differentiation

• Relevance of brand (to consumer/ customer)

• Visitors to website• Click-thru to site• Time spent on site• Downloads from site• Calls• Event/meeting

attendance

• Attitude uplift• Stated intention to

buy• Brand preference/

Loyalty/Trust• Endorsement• Requests for quote• Links to site• Trial

Social/Community Engagement

18

NOTE: Within social media, several of these metrics could straddle two rows as an Intermediary Effect and/or Target Audience Effect, depending on who’s engaged in the conversation. For simplicity, we have listed those metrics under Intermediary Effect to reflect the general conversation as you would not know if all participants are in your target audience. If the commenters are known to be in your Target Audience, you could reflect those metrics under Target Audience Effect.

• Active advocates

• Brand engagement

• Leads/sales

• Revenue

• Market share

• Cost savings

Fast Forward - Lisbon Measurement Agenda 2020

 The Measurement Agenda was adopted at the 3rd European Summit on Measurement held in Lisbon, in June, 2011

1.How to measure the return on investment (ROI) of public relations (89%)

2.2.Create and adopt global standards for social media Create and adopt global standards for social media measurement (83%)measurement (83%)

3.Measurement of PR campaigns and programmes needs to become an intrinsic part of the PR toolkit (73%)

4.Institute a client education program such that clients insist on measurement of outputs, outcomes and business results from PR programs (61%)

Some client barriers to social media measurement

• Young people represent a large percentage of the “net generation”

• Some companies do not see them as influencers and not worth the investment in social media metrics

• Companies tend to focus on the smaller, campaign-specific metrics, such as traffic from Twitter or number of fans on Facebook, rather than bottom line impact, such as sales, as well as customer satisfaction rates

• Recognized industry standards do not yet exist, resulting in lack of confidence in measurement methodology applied by agencies

One size does not fit all…

We need to look at what PR professionals want from social media measurement

• To educate colleagues about the importance of monitoring & measuring online conversationsSometimes with a limited budget

• To demonstrate ROI value of social media investment• To show the impact has the social media campaign had on

the ‘business’• To understand the drivers and influencers of the

conversations• From all these conversations to know who and what matter?

Standardization Opportunity #1

Engagement:

How do you define it?

How are you measuring it?

What are the different levels?

Standardization Opportunity #2

Influence:

How do you define it?

How are you measuring it?

Is the data available / transparent?

Standardization Opportunity #3

Sentiment:

Can we agree on a standard scale?

How is social media different than traditional media?

Other Standardization Opportunities

• Standard “content sourcing table” (like a food nutrition label)

• Standard audience measures (e.g. Nielsen and Arbitron) Audited circulation figures for online/social media Unique daily vs. monthly visitor counts Impressions vs. opportunity to see vs. probability to see Targeted audience vs. total audience

• Agreement on basic coding: reach, frequency, messages, media types

• Standard method for determining “value” of fans and followers The value will be unique to an organization, its stakeholders, its

activities and its objectives – but could a universal method be agreed?

Today we took the thinking forward

• Earlier today 3 international groups announced a Coalition to develop global standards in social media measurement

• The three groups are the International Association for Measurement and Evaluation of Communication (AMEC), Council of PR Firms and Institute for Public Relations (IPR)

• We are doing this to end the confusion in the marketplace, amongst clients and in the PR industry

Moving to the next level

• AMEC has formed Coalition with IPR and Council of PR Firms to develop social media standards

• Cross-industry social media measurement summit – New Hampshire, US, October: 24/25 October

• “The Big Ask” - AMEC London half—day seminar: November 17

In summary

• The move towards developing global social media measurement standards is under way

• If you have a point of view about what goes into the standards contact:

• Barry Leggetter, Executive Director, AMEC

barryleggetter@amecorg.com

• What industry leaders think

Thank you....for inviting me to be with you today

The International Association for Measurement and Evaluation of Communication (AMEC)

barryleggetter@amecorg.com