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ABSTRACT: Marketers are being inundated with social tnedia metrics, but there is little consensus on what one
should be measuring, let alone how these measures inform marketing strategy. This article attempts to bring clar-
ity to the situation by adopting an integrated marketing communications perspective. By screening extant metrics
for alignment with social media communications objectives, seven key social media metrics are identified. These
metrics are then described and their application to social media marketing from an integrated marketing communi-
cations perspective is discussed. Finally, limitations of the metrics are considered to arrive at suggestions for future
research.
Social media metrics are all the rage. In 2009—just management is also demanding more attention to mar-
three years after Twitter launched and Facebook keting metrics. Seggie, Cavusgil, and Phelan (2007)
opened registration to the general public—Berkowitz suggest that this is due to three factors: (1) demand for
(2009) identified exactly 100 social media metrics. accountability from all units of a firm; (2) dissatisfac-
Now, hardly a day goes by without a new article or tion with subjective measures of performance; and (3)
blog post proclaiming, "5 Social Media Metrics You the availability of technology for collecting data for
Should Be Monitoring"; "14 Social Media Metrics metrics. Rust, Ambler, Carpenter, Kumar, and Srivas-
You Can Use Right NOW!"; or "50 Key Social Media tava (2004, 76) warn that "lack of accountability has
Metrics Every Marketer Must Know." Yet for all the undermined marketers' credibility, threatened the
new metrics, marketers maintain they are only slightly standing of the marketing ñinction within the firm,
more informed than they were at the beginning of the and even threatened marketing's existence as a distinct
social media revolution (Margiloff 2012). Calls for capability within the firm."
standardization of metrics have gone unheeded This crisis in measurement comes at a time when
(Wurtzel 2009), and both practitioners and academics marketers are steadily increasing their social media
lament the preponderance of "nice to know" (Fogel spending. In 2012, a survey of marketers and advertis-
2010) and "vanity" (Madison 2012) metrics over met- ing agencies revealed that 59% planned to increase
rics that lead to meaningful action. Romaniuk (2012, their spending on social media marketing (Del Rey
398) aptly sums up the state of social media metrics as 2012). Despite the increases, marketers may still be
follows: "an available metric is not necessarily a use- underspending on social media (Briggs 2012).Without
ful metric." informative metrics, however, efforts to optimally al-
Metrics are necessary for the development and locate advertising funds will continue to be impeded
evaluation of integrated marketing communications (Schultz 2011).
programs (Kitchen, Kim, and Schultz 2008). As social This article attempts to bring clarity to the situation
media continues to lure audiences away from mass by viewing social media metricsfi-omthe lens of inte-
media, marketers can no longer rely on traditional au- grated marketing communications. We begin by de-
dience measurement (Kliatchko 2008; McDonald scribing the primary communications objectives for
2008). The measurement challenge is further compli- social media. By screening extant metrics for align-
cated by the consumer-to-consumer interactions that ment with communications objectives, we narrow the
social media enables (Wind and Sharp 2009). Upper list of social media metrics to seven key metrics.
64
These metrics are then described and their application coupons, discount codes, contests, sweepstakes, and
to social media marketing from an integrated market- games. As an example, Starbucks frequently an-
ing communications perspective is discussed. Finally, nounces discounts on new coffee dritiks on Facebook
we conclude with suggestions for future research. and Twitter to encourage followers to try the new bev-
erages.
SOCIAL MEDIA OBJECTIVES Encouraging repurchase. In addition to stimulating
trial, online sales promotions are effective at encour-
At the core of an integrated marketing communica- aging repeat purchases. Amazon.com, for example,
tions program are the communications objectives. routinely provides limited-term discount codes to fol-
These are specific, measurable tasks that can be lowers on Facebook and Twitter. Of course, a sales
achieved using adveriising and other forms of commu- promotion is not always necessary; Panera Bread, for
nication (CoUey 1961). Metrics are employed to (1)
example, relies on the appeal of new menu items an-
establish baselines for communications objectives and
nounced on social media to draw customers back into
(2) track progress towards achieving each objective.
their restaurants. Social media also serve as a conven-
Since the selection of metrics depends on the objec-
ient channel for encouraging followers to sign up for
tives, we must first identify a set of potential social
loyalty programs and for communicating loyalty pro-
media objectives before discussing social media met-
gram promotions.
rics. In this section we consider two types of social
media objectives: short-term and long-term. Long-Term Objectives
Short-Term Objectives Long-term social media objectives are concerned less
with generating revenue and more with creating brand
The primary purpose of short-term social media ob-
equity and building brand relationships. The four
jectives is to generate revenue. The three short-term
objectives that we consider are (1) gaining considera- long-term objectives that we consider are (1) improv-
tion, (2) stimulating trial, and (3) encouraging repur- ing customer satisfaction, (2) creating awareness, (3)
chase. building relationships, and (4) fostering community.
Gaining consideration. Consumers are increasingly Improving customer satisfaction. Social media offer
turning to social media for product and service recom- brands a number of opportunities for improving cus-
mendations. By monitoring and responding to re- tomer satisfaction. First, customers may contact a
quests for advice, marketers can help ensure the company directly via social media to express dissatis-
consideration of their products and services. For ex- faction with a product or service. If the company deals
ample, a snowblower manufacturer might monitor with such complaints promptly and effectively, dissat-
Twitter for tweets containing the keyword "snow- isfied customers will be less likely to communicate
blower"; when a match is found (e.g., "Can someone their dissatisfaction to others. Second, customers may
recommend a good snowblower?"), the marketer could post messages about unsatisfactory experiences to so-
reply with information. A more ambitious program cial media. Although not ideal from a public relations
may involve monitoring social media for problems perspective, this at least gives the company a chance
that the marketer's product or service can solve. For to discover and address such posts before they are
example, a retailer of ergonomie furniture could watch widely shared. Third, a company can enhance cus-
for complaints related to workstation ergonomics tomer satisfaction by providing product support via
(e.g., "My wrists are killing me from typing all day!"), social media. Software developers, for instance, often
to which the retailer could respond with commisera- receive and reply to requests for technical support on
tion and a link to a page on ergonomics on the re- Twitter. Finally, by monitoring social media for posts
tailer's website. from recent customers, companies can reassure these
Stimulating trial. Marketers have long used consumer- customers that they made a good choice and thereby
oriented sales promotions to stimulate trial of products reduce cognitive dissonance.
and services (Farris and Quelch 1987; Gupta 1988). It Creating awareness. One of the primary functions of
is perhaps not surprising, then, that one of marketers' social media is content sharing. As such, social media
primary uses of social media today is communicating is highly effective at propagating messages, particu-
sales promotions (Schultz and Peltier 2013). Common larly when people find the messages entertaining, sur-
forms of online sales promotion include printable prising, and/or humorous. When a message is shared
Spring 2013 65
widely within a relatively short period of time, it is sharing information, perpetuating the history and cul-
said to have "gone viral." This leads to a rapid increase ture of the brand, and providing assistance . . . [and]
in awareness of both the message and the message's exert[ing] pressure on members to remain loyal to the
creator. Psy's "Gangnam Style" music video is a great collective and to the brand" (Muniz and O'Guinn
example of this. Within a matter of months, Psy's 2001, 427). Brand communities have also been shown
video had received over one billion views, propelling to increase revenue generated from community mem-
him from relative obscurity outside his home country bers, both online and in stores (Manchanda, Packard,
of South Korea to worldwide renown (Hall 2012; and Pattabhiramaiah 2011). Furthermore, brand com-
Yang 2012). Dr. Robert Wagstaff, a retired dentist, ex- munities can serve as a resource for idea generation
perienced similar success with his invention, the (e.g., crowdsourcing) and marketing research. Al-
Orabrush. After eight years of unsuccessful market- though online brand communities have traditionally
ing. Dr. Wagstaff enlisted the help of a student at been hosted on discussion forums, many have moved
Bringham Young University to create a series of to social media due to the lower overhead and the fact
YouTube videos promoting the Orabrush (Orabrush that consumers are already active on social media.
2010). Within two years, these videos had amassed
over 39 million views, prompting Walmart to decide
to carry the Orabrush at 3,500 of its stores (Wasser- SOCIAL MEDIA METRICS
man 2011). Although social media can help create Given the large number of social media metrics—and
awareness for any business, it is especially valuable the costs involved in monitoring each metric—^the first
for startups and small businesses like Orabrush that step is to identify metrics that will be most informative
cannot afford the mass media buys traditionally used to the marketer (Fogel 2010). Fortunately, adopting an
to increase awareness. integrated marketing communications perspective nar-
Building relationships. Brands seek to build relation- rows the list considerably, since a metric must provide
ships with customers to promote brand loyalty and an indication of progress towards one or more cotnmu-
positive word-of-mouth (Hennig-Thurau, Gwinner, nications objectives to be considered. It is further help-
and Gremler 2002). Since brand relationships develop ful to make a distinction between metrics developed
as a result of repeat positive interactions between cus- specifically for social media analytics and metrics de-
tomer and brand (Duncan and Moriarty 1998), brands veloped for web analytics. Although web metrics can be
must find ways to engage customers in such interac- helpftil in calculating social media metrics (e.g., social
tions. Prior to the advent of social media, interactions media return on investment), they are by definition
were primarily one-way (e.g., the viewing of a brand's more suited to analyzing website activity, and as such
advertisements on mass media), with only occasional provide an incomplete view of social media marketing
two-way communication (e.g., contacting customer campaigns. This review thus focuses on social media
service to resolve a problem). However, with social analytics. The marketer must also decide whether to uti-
media the options for personalized one-way and two- lize both proprietary and nonproprietary metrics or only
way communications are greatly expanded. Marketers nonproprietary metrics. Since the means of calculating
now routinely stimulate interactions with consumers proprietary metrics is typically unavailable for public
on social media by posting interesting and relevant scrutiny, we consider only nonproprietary metrics.
content, such as news, articles, photos, videos, and With the above criteria in mind, seven social media
even games. Betty Crocker, for example, posts photos metrics were identified: volume, share of voice, en-
of baked goods on Pinterest for customers to view, gagement, advocates, return on investment, leads gen-
comment on, and share. erated, and response time. Each metric is applicable to
Fostering commimity. Building on the idea of brand one or more social media channels (see Figure 1):
relationships, Muniz and O'Guinn (2001) proposed blogs (e.g., WordPress); social networks (e.g., Face-
the concept of the brand community. Here a brand's book); photo/video sharing (e.g., YouTube); microblogs
customers interact not only with the brand but also (e.g.. Twitter); product review sites (e.g., Amazon); lo-
with one another. Brand communities may be organ- cation check-ins/reviews (e.g.. Foursquare); and social
ized by the company that owns the brand or they may bookmarking (e.g., Delicious). In the following para-
form autonomously (McAlexander, Schouten, and graphs, each metric is discussed in turn. (See Table 1
Koenig 2002); either way, these communities "carry for an overview of the metrics and their corresponding
out important functions on behalf of the brand, such as definitions.)
I
Photo/video sharing (C.ÍÍ., Flickr, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube)
I
Social networks (e.y., Facebook, (Jooglc*, Linkedin, ronrcn)
Spring 2013 67
TABLE 1. Definitions of Common Social Media Marketing Metrics
Metric Formula
Volume The number of mentions of a brand name over a specified
period of time. Often segmented into positive and negative
volume using sentiment analysis.
Engagement (per post) The number of comments on, replies to, likes of, and shares
of a given post.
"taking some action beyond viewing or reading" (De- ation of future posts. As an aggregate measure, en-
lahaye Paine 2011, 60). This may include "liking" a gagement can also indicate the overall level of con-
brand's post, commenting on or replying to a brand's sumer interest in a brand's message. To adjust for
post, or sharing a brand's post witb others. Since eacb differences in the viewership of each post, Lovett and
platform employs its own terminology, we classify the Owyang (2010) recommend tracking overall engage-
possible behaviors as "expressing agreement," "rat- ment relative to the total number of views. Since the
ing," "voicing opinion," and "sharing." The correspon- number of views per post can be difficult to ascertain,
ding terminology for each of the dominant social others have advocated tracking engagement in pro-
media platforms is shown in Table 2. portion to the number of followers at the time of the
Tracking engagement on a per-post basis enables posting. Even this must be viewed as a rough approx-
the marketer to gauge the audience's level of interest imation, however, as not all followers read every post,
in the content of each post, thereby informing the cre- and some followers may not even be human (Sterne
Expressing Voicmg
Platform Posts Agreement Rating Opinion Sharing !
Primar} content Simple expression Simple evaluation Statement of one's Sharing oía post
with which users ofagreemetil vith of ¡1 post opinion \\ith wit!} others on the
interact a post respect to a post same platjorm ..„„„^^
Social Bookmarking
Delicious Links Share link
-
Stumbe Upon Links "like " ' Comment Share
Location Check-ins/Reviews
Foursquare Locations Like pidn'tjike Til).. Share
Yelp Businesses 1 to 5 stars Review
Product Reviews
Amazon Products 1 to 5 stars Review Add to list
' -
Goodreads Books 1 to 5 stars Review Add to bookshelf
Microblogs
App.net Posts _ Slar__ _ __ Reply Repost
Pheed Pheeds Love Heartache Pheedback Remix
Tumblr Posts Like Rebjojg _ Reblog
- - -
Twitter Tweets Favorite Reply Retweet
Photo/Video Sharing
Flickr_ Photos _ _ Favorite Comment Add to gallery
- " —
lnstagram Photos Like Comment
Pinterest Pins Like Dislike Comment Repin
YouTube Videos Like Dislike Comment -
Social Networks
Facebook Status updates Like Comment Share
Google+ Posts ""+1 '^ " Comment Share
' - - -
Linkedin Updates "Tike"" Comment
Blogs
B logger Posts +1 - Comment -
WordPress Posts Like - Comment Reblog
2010). Additional issues with engagement as a metric the action. Expressions of agreement (e.g., clicking a
are considered under Future Research. "Like" button on a brand's Facebook post) are forms
of passive participation, whereas voicing an opinion
Advocates (e.g., commenting on a brand's Facebook post) and
Consumers can be viewed as progressing through a se- sharing (e.g., sharing a brand's Facebook post with
ries of four stages in their relationships with brands on one's Facebook friends) are more active forms of par-
social media (see Figure 2). Initially each consumer ticipation. In the final stage, the consumer adopts the
starts as a "bystander" with respect to a specific brand; role of brand advocate, creating and uploading content
the consumer may see mentions of the brand on social that actively promotes the brand (e.g., posting a Face-
media, but s/he does not actively seek out posts by the book status update that recommends or speaks favor-
brand. In the second stage, the consumer adopts the ably of the brand).
role of "follower"; here s/he seeks out the brand's mes- Tracking the number of "followers" or "fans" may
sage by opting in to receive brand communications on be ego-boosting, but it is unlikely to be helpful in en-
social media. In the third stage, the consumer becomes hancing the effectiveness of a brand's social media
a participant, interacting with the brand and the marketing, due to the existence of fake and inactive
brand's message on social media. The participation followers (Sterne 2010). More useful is tracking the
continuum ranges fTom "passive" to "active" forms of number of advocates of a brand. Not surprisingly, the
participation, depending on the type and purpose of goal is to grow the number of advocates over time.
Spring 2013 69
FIGURE 2. Levels of Consumer Engagement on Social Media
Advocates not only interact with the brand on social media, they
Advocate actively promote the brand by creating and uploading content
favorable to the brand (e.g., posting, reviewing).
This is particularly important when a marketer's ob- as a measure of performance. The belief that every-
jective is to gain consideration, since friends of advo- thing digital is measurable is a misconception that can
cates are more likely to consider a brand when an easily lead marketers astray. Attributing sales to social
advocate speaks highly of it. If the number of advo- media is problematic, particularly for campaigns that
cates decreases over time, the firm may need to estab- do not offer an incentive. Even with campaigns that do
lish an advocacy program or post more engaging offer an incentive, the calculation of return on invest-
content (Lovett and Owyang 2010). Also of relevance ment ignores potential synergies between incentive-
is the influence of a brand's advocates (Fogel 2010). based and non-incentive-based campaigns. Return on
An advocate with a large number of followers that en- investment has also been criticized for its overempha-
gage with the advocate's postings is more influential sis of shori-term returns over long-term brand build-
(and thus more valuable to the marketer) than an advo- ing (Calkins and Rucker 2008). Hoffman and Fodor
cate with fewer followers that tend not to engage with (2010) warn that social media is still in its early stages
the advocate's posts. and that focusing too much on return on investment
could stifle experimentation, potentially creating op-
Return on Investment (ROI) portunities for competitors. They suggest that mar-
Return on investment is defined as the revenue gained keters instead view return on investment from the
from a social media marketing campaign minus the consumer's perspective; namely, what the consumer
cost of the campaign divided by the cost of the cam- gets for investing his or her time and energy in engag-
paign (see Table 1). Return on investment is most ef- ing with a brand through social media.
fective at evaluating short-term social media
objectives, such as stimulating trial and encouraging Leads Generated
repurchase. For example, a marketer might offer a When a company seeks to gain consideration of its
printable coupon or communicate a discount code as products and services, it will often track the number of
part of a campaign to stimulate trial. To receive the leads generated through social media. This is particu-
discount, the customer must present the coupon or larly helpfiil when the firm is investing considerable
enter the code at the time of purchase. Since sales that resources in monitoring and responding to requests for
result from the campaign are directly attributable to advice on social media, as described earlier under So-
the campaign via the coupon or discount code, the cial Media Objectives. Leads generated through social
marketer can determine the revenue gained from the media can also be expressed as a percentage of total
campaign and calculate the return on investment. leads generated by the firm, in which case it provides a
Caution is advised when using return on investment measure of the relative effectiveness of social media at
Spring 2013 71
FIGURE 3. Illustration of a Consumer's Multichannel Journey
Event 1
Consumer sees a friend's post on Facebook about a Fiskars lawn mower.
Event 2
Consunner visits Fiskars' Google+ page. Here she reads about the nnower She
then watches an embedded YouTube video demonstrating the product.
Event 3
The next day, the consumer searches for "Fiskars mower" via Google. She clicks on
the first organic search result, which takes her to a third party review site where she [
reads other consumers' thoughts on the mower.
Event 4
After two days of thinking, the consumer decides to purchase the mower. She
conducts a second Google search and clicks on a paid ad which takes her to the
site to complete her purchase.
form of selection bias: only sharing activity that is a "focused mental and emotional connection"? If not,
conducted on publicly visible social media is included. how might we measure this given the technological
Thus estimates of online activity do not include shar- limitations of social media? Additional research on the
ing via e-mail, chat, or even privacy-enabled social measurement of engagement in social media is clearly
media accounts. Madrigal (2012) coined the term dark warranted.
social to refer to these technology-enabled but essen- Finally, there is a need for integration of social
tially untraceable methods of social sharing. In investi- media metrics with other measures of marketing com-
gating the sources of traffic to The Atlantic'?, web site. munications (Schultz 2011). This is essential for opti-
Madrigal found that over half could be attributed to mal allocation of resources and justification of
dark social. Across a broader set of websites, he found expenditures (Ewing 2009). The situation is compli-
that dark social averaged 69% of social referrals, com- cated, however, by the fact that traditional measures
pared to only 20% from Facebook and 6% from Twit- assume unidirectional communication, whereas social
ter. Although links with embedded tracking codes may media is a hybrid medium that possesses characteris-
alleviate this problem, users do not always include tics of both unidirectional and bidirectional media
these codes when copying and pasting links. Research (Mangold and Faulds 2009). Moreover, synergies
is needed on methods of estimating and correcting for among traditional and nontraditional media can have a
selection bias due to dark social activity. multiplicative effect that is not explicitly addressed by
Engagement is another metric with room for im- medium-specific metrics (Schultz, Block, and Raman
provement (Schultz and Peltier 2013). As discussed 2012).
earlier, social media engagement metrics are com-
monly defined in terms of the number of comments The Problem of Attribution
on, replies to, likes of, and shares of a brand's posts. A fully integrated marketing communications program
However, if we adopt a more traditional IMC defini- includes efforts across an array of digital and non-dig-
tion of engagement, such as "the focused mental and ital channels. As marketers attempt to quantify the
emotional connection between a consumer, a media value of each channel, major issues become evident,
vehicle, and a brand's message" (Belch and Belch since multiple touchpoints are encountered throughout
2012, 389), our social media metric seems simplistic. the consumer journey. Marketers are faced with a
Do comments, replies, likes, and shares truly represent question of attribution; that is, deciding which channel
Spring 2013 73
Social Media and Effective Integrated each social channel. Communications on Linkedin,
Marketing Communications for example, are expected to be professional and well-
As of this writing, Wikipedia hsts 198 active social written, whereas posts on Pheed tend to be raw and
networking websites, with a disclaimer that "this list is graphic. Moreover, when deciding whether or not to
not exhaustive" (Wikipedia 2013). Indeed, newer social participate in a social channel, brands must also con-
media sites, such as AppNet and Pheed, are conspicu- sider whether the style of communication is consistent
ously absent from the list. As social media continue to with the brand's image. A hip, modern brand targeted
proliferate, effective integration of social media into at youth may find the style of communication on
marketing communications will be increasingly diffi- Pheed appropriate for the brand, whereas a conserva-
cult. We highlight some of the potential challenges tive, high-end brand may not. In cases of overlap,
here as suggestions for areas of future research. where multiple social channels match the brand's
One issue concerns the number of social media image, the marketer may need to customize communi-
sites a brand should be active on. On the one hand, cations for each social channel. Twitter users, for ex-
there is clearly an opportunity cost associated with ample, may be annoyed by brands that post truncated
each additional site; the time and resources required to versions of Facebook updates to Twitter.
maintain a presence on a new social channel could be Lastly, how should a brand deal with users who fol-
spent enhancing the brand's presence on existing low the brand on multiple social channels? A current
channels or even dedicated to other aspects of market- practice of many brands is to post roughly the same
ing communications. On the other hand, a brand lack- content on each social channel. Does this duplication
ing presence on a social channel may cause discord annoy consumers who see the same message across
among its customers who are engaged there. Even multiple channels? Or does it simply reinforce the
worse, the brand might fall victim to a third party message? Presumably, people who follow a brand on
masquerading as the brand on the new social channel, multiple channels are fans, possibly even advocates.
potentially damaging the brand's reputation and its re- Does posting similar messages on multiple social
lationship with its customers. Aside from having a channels help these users share the brand's message
presence, how active does a brand need to be on each with different sets of followers? Is there any advantage
social channel? Is it sufficient to maintain a minimal to encouraging people to follow the brand on multiple
presence on the less popular social sites? Or must a channels? Namely, can the brand post to multiple so-
brand be equally active on each site? Research is cial charmels in such a way as to create cross-channel
needed to help brands answer these questions and synergies? If so, how can the brand measure the effec-
guide their social media strategy. tiveness of its efforts, given the attribution problem
Marketers must also consider the demographics of discussed earlier?
the social channels. Pinterest, for example, is currently
more popular among a female audience, while Twitter
is slightly more popular among males, and Pheed is REFERENCES
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