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The 10 Metrics that Matter Most for Social CRM


Presented By: HP

Presented by HP Enterprise Services 


How does your organization know if investments in Social CRM are paying off? How do decision-makers determine if they should invest more in customer engagement activities based on social media? What should you measure to create a business case for continued or increased funding for social initiatives? The following metrics will help you quantify the social business outcomes that really matter:




2. Engagement duration. For some companies, engagement duration is more important than page views. For example, if you have a Facebook application, how much time are social network members spending using it? Is per-member usage increasing over time? If people visit your company websites from social media sites, how much time are they spending there, and which pages do they visit?


3. Bounce rate. Are visitors coming to your site from social media sites but quickly leaving? Maybe your landing page needs better, more relevant copy. Maybe the information the visitors are seeking isn’t easily found.


4. Membership increase and active network size. This is the portion of your company’s social network (e.g., Twitter, Facebook) that actively engages with your social media content (e.g., Tweets, Facebook pages, etc.) Are your collective members, followers, fans, and network growing, and do they interact with your content?


5. Activity ratio. How active is your company’s collective social network? Compare the ratio of active members vs. total members, and chart this over time. There’ll always be some social network members who are inactive, but if you initiate a campaign to increase interaction, measure the results. Activity can be measured in a variety of ways, including usage of social applications.


6. Conversions. You want social network members to convert into subscriptions, sales (direct or through affiliates), Facebook application use, or whatever other offerings you have in your overall sales funnel that can be directly or indirectly monetized. (e.g., Subscriptions to a weekly e-newsletter can be monetized by giving other companies access to your list for advertising.) Measure all types of conversions, and chart them over time.


7. Brand mentions in social media. If you have a highly active social network, members should be talking about your company or the company’s brands. Measure and track quantities of both positive and negative mentions.


8. Loyalty. Are social members interacting in the network repeatedly, sharing content and links, mentioning your brands, and evangelizing? How many members reshare? How often do they reshare?


9. Virality. Social members might be sharing tweets and Facebook updates relevant to your company, but is this info being reshared by their networks? How soon afterwards are they resharing? How many friends of friends are resharing your links and content?


10. Blog interaction. Blogs are part of a social media marketing toolkit when you allow comments and interact with readers by responding. Encourage reader responses either directly in the comments section of blog posts, or via Twitter. (Use a blog widget that allows this.) If your blog’s content is suitable for social voting (Digg, Propeller, Mixx, etc.) or social bookmarking (Delicious, Stumbleupon) sites, install a blog plugin that displays the necessary sharing “buttons,” then track referrals back from those sites.


When it comes to implementing new metrics, remember that change management and organizational readiness are prerequisites.  The Social CRM leaders in your company need to have a clear vision for transformation, and they must assure that the insights gained from these metrics are communicated to those in the organization who can take action. This helps your organization make the most of its social initiatives, improve the customer experience, and increase revenue.