I was recently involved in a rather detailed conversation focused on measuring the effectiveness and overall success of social engagement channels.  No matter how hard I tried I could not direct the conversation away from ROI.  I get it – when you own a business it’s all about the dollar signs, and social media can’t always be measured in terms of ROI – or can it?

How are you (or your business) perceived within your community? Are you a thought leader providing expert insight and analysis? Or are you merely a connector – funneling traffic to other experts?

How much influence do you have over the decisions being made by members of your online community?

Social influence comes down to a couple of very important factors:

1. How valuable is the resource you are providing to your community? Is it unique, relevant and helpful to the community?
2. How well do you listen and react to the needs (or wants) of your community?
   • Do you monitor the conversation within your community?
   • Do you actively engage your members? Answer questions, and provide clarification where needed?
   • Are you aware of the overall mood of your community? Do you monitor your activity and how your members react to different types of posts?

The way I see it – having 20,000 people following your Twitter feed means very little if you are not actively engaged within the community, and aware of their needs and wants…

People decided to follow you for a reason and it is your responsibility to nurture, grow and guide the community. If you neglect to give it the attention it demands you could end up doing more damage than good for your business!

Social Influence is about more than just dollar signs. It’s about name recognition. It’s about managing your brand.

It’s your brand becoming the solution to their problem.

It’s all about you – your name – and the way people connect with you.

So how do you measure social influence?

Well each channel is a little different…let’s take a look at Twitter.

I like to keep a close eye on:

• # of Followers
• # of Lists
• # of Mentions
• # of RT
• # of Tweets

I track these weekly in a custom excel dashboard and for a better visual representation view the data in linked trend charts.

It is also a good idea to:

• Regularly monitor the conversations by creating custom columns within your Twitter Client for things like:
  • Your Name
  • Popular/Related Terms
  • Common #Tags
• Watch big players (influencers) in your community to see what they’re talking about and who’s interested.

And of course:

• React, Respond and Contribute
• Get involved in the conversation. Be present. Engage your audience!

Finally – Create a custom segment in Google Analytics that is aimed at your incoming traffic from Twitter, and analyze the data! How effective is your social media campaign at driving conversions? What are your twitter followers doing on your website? Which content do they find most useful or interesting? How much time do they spend on your site? Are they completing any of your goals?

After a while you will easily identify trends and better understand how your community reacts to different types of data. The more you understand about your community – the better you can serve their needs – and the more valuable you become to them!

Building long-lasting, meaningful relationships (establishing trust) takes time. It’s not easy and it doesn’t happen overnight. Be patient, stay focused and follow the data!

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