Measure, measure, measure!

Measure your results.  Travis and Barbara said that that was the one thing they really wanted everyone to take away from today’s webinar, Google Food Recipe:  Integrating Blogs, Website, and Social Media.

Measure your results.

That’s not the first thing that jumps to mind when I hear about Facebook or Twitter or blog posts.  It’s not the second or third, either.  It seems awfully mathy for something as relaxed and comfortable as social media, but it’s not.  When you are using social media tools for business purposes, you have to know that the time you spend is not wasted.

Barbara suggested a plethora of tools to use to get measurements for return on investment, including Google Analytics, Facebook and YouTube Insights, Radian6, ScoutLabs, Sysomes, and Webtrends.  What I found really interesting, however, was the way she quantified reactions to social media, giving various responses actual dollar values.  Someone tweeting you directly to ask about your products or services is obviously a higher-value contact than someone who just decides to follow you.  What value you actually assign to the different possible responses depends on your business, but conceptually, the idea holds.

Go get yourself a ruler or a scale or a calculator or all of the above and get measuring!