In continuing to simplify Social Media, let’s take a peek at Social Media metrics, or better yet, how to figure out if it’s working effectively for YOU and your franchise organization!

If, the net result of online activity adds up to effective social media engagement, then, what is the monetary value of a visit, comment, link or friend? Well, the ONLY honest answer is, “it depends.” Only YOU know how much these interactions matter to your brand, and how they relate to YOUR goals and objectives.

Measuring Social Media is not yet a science. Nor, is it rocket science! But, we can break it down to five key factors, Attention, Participation, Authority, Influence, and what I like to call the “X-Factor,” Sentiment.

Attention – The amount of traffic to your content for a given period of time.  Similar to the standard web metrics of site visits and page/video views.

Participation – The extent to which users engage with your content in a channel.  Think blog comments, Facebook wall posts, YouTube ratings, or widget interactions.

Authority – The inbound links to your content – like trackbacks & inbound links to a blog post or sites linking to a YouTube video.

Influence – The size of the user base subscribed to your content. Subscribers for blogs, feed or email
Followers on Twitter or Friendfeed. Fans of your Facebook page.

Sentiment, the “X-Factor” – The spirit driving user participation, because it really matters!

Yesterday, we noted some specific goals that are typically listed in discussions with franchise executives about venturing into Social Media and determining exactly what they would like to accomplish. This list includes:

Create or improve brand awareness
Increase business at unit level
Create or improve interest in franchise opportunity
Generate qualified franchise sales leads
Improve franchise sales efficiency
Improve communications throughout franchise system
Locally, regionally or nationally

But, as your Social Media program is moving along, don’t lose site of the not so obvious results that are often mixed in with the obvious results.

System-wide revenue – obvious
Customer satisfaction – not so obvious
Corporate profitability – obvious
System-wide stability – not so obvious
Franchise development – obvious
Vendor / Supplier reaction – not so obvious

I look forward to your questions and comments.

*This post was originally published on this site March 2011