Social Media Measurement: A Disciplined Approach

January 1st, 2018

With contributor:

Summary

Social media shouldn’t be treated differently than other activities when it comes to measuring its value. Different approaches should be used to gauge social media’s impact on reputation, demand creation, and sales. The measurement approach that your organization uses will depend on how it is using social media.

Prove it. If you’re a B2B marketer who has responsibility for a type of social media endeavor, sooner or later you’re going to hear these words from someone in the organization who wants to understand whether the latest marketing craze is for real.

A common cliche is that social media is difficult to measure because its core aims of engagement and alignment are qualitative in nature. At its core, this belief is fundamentally flawed, as social media tactics by their very nature are backed by a host of quantitative web analytics. In this report, we discuss a strategic framework for the measurement of social media’s impact and cite specific measures in the three core B2B areas in which social media tactics are commonly employed (see Figure 1).

Want to read the full report?

This report is available for individual purchase ($1495).

Forrester helps business and technology leaders use customer obsession to accelerate growth. That means empowering you to put the customer at the center of everything you do: your leadership strategy, and operations. Becoming a customer-obsessed organization requires change — it requires being bold. We give business and technology leaders the confidence to put bold into action, shaping and guiding how to navigate today's unprecedented change in order to succeed.