How socially effective are you?

No, I don’t mean whether you invariably spill drinks on people at parties or find it hard to start up conversations with strangers (although there are probably virtual equivalents to both). I’m referring of course to your social marketing efforts.

Plenty of businesses spend lots of time on social marketing. Some measure effectiveness by the amount of followers or likes, how many comments they get, reach, or how many “influencers” they create (people that can affect other people’s purchase decision). Others even trot out the vintage Larry Tate (of Bewitched fame) or Madmen adage of brand awareness. Few can tell you what they're actually getting out of it when it comes to booked business.

Many do it because they read they should be doing or because they like it (hey, I’m on Facebook and Twitter all the time anyway). This is the equivalent of a job candidate saying I like to work with people because I’m a people person.

This article from Web Marketing Today makes a valiant attempt to give you a framework for putting some metrics around social. What strikes me is that of all of those listed, only one -- clicks to the website from social channels and the resulting conversions -- are hard metrics. That’s not the fault of the author, it’s simply the nature of the beast. From social interaction through engagement to the sale is a complicated chain and it can be difficult to discern what generated the behavior that resulted in a sale. A person could go to your website directly or through branded search (typing in your business name). There is no definitive way to know what generated that behavior -- advertising, social influence or even a prior search.

So the bottom line is, you have to be careful to calibrate the money, time and resources you put toward social with what you think you are tangibly getting out of it. Now if you can marry social with the search dynamic, that’s a whole other story. And yes, the topic of a future blog post.