A 7-step program for social media measurement

Many of you probably have read Karine Joly‘s University Business article about social media measurement, since it’s been out for a month. (Karine blogged about it exactly one month ago, on Oct. 2.) But for those of you who haven’t yet read this article, check out Social Media Measurement 101. In the article, Karine outlines a very simple seven-step formula that can be used to measure just about any sort of communications campaign.

Here are the seven steps:

1. Define measurable goals for social media activities.
2. Choose key performance indicators (KPIs) carefully.
3. Plan ahead and properly set up the right measurement tools.
4. Capture the data at preset intervals.
5. Don’t forget some benchmarking.
6. Share your measurement data.
7. Use measurement data to craft your next moves.

It’s a good primer that anyone in communications or marketing should find helpful.

If you’re really into measurement, you ought to follow K.D. Paine’s Measurement Standard blog for frequent news and insights.

Tracking the speed of social media

Even get the feeling that social media activity is moving at a head-spinning rate? Take a look at the counter below (or here), and your suspicions will be confirmed by the staggering numbers.

http://www.personalizemedia.com/media/socmedcounter.swf

This counter was created by Gary Hayes of Personalizemedia, who has made the embeddable code available for anyone to post, as I’ve done here.

Hat tip to Wassan Humadi (@aljamait) for the find.