What is the value of metrics?

We as marketers use 'metrics' to measure campaigns. Metrics are simply the 'number of units' at the foundation of every equation.

Understanding how many people are talking about your brand and each of its individual assets is extremely important. This needs to be taken into account when planning for future campaigns, and more importantly, where you need to assign your budget.

Quality over quantity

However, understanding the true value of conversation can only be done when one looks at the quality of the data, rather than just the quantity of it. Metrics can be used to segment or categorise the data for easier analysis.

In order to get viable returns on investment (ROI), digital marketing strategies and tactics need to focus on achieving key performance indexes, also known as KPIs. This can be done by outlining some key metrics which help highlight the real value of the conversation about your brand. Consider the following metrics as starting points for measuring success:

Reputation score - to sum it up

The reputation score acts as a good aggregated value when it comes to understanding your overall online performance.

As a business working in an extremely competitive environment, this may be the best metric to focus on. This metric comes in handy when businesses seek to understand their position in online spaces, and more importantly, to benchmark their performances against those of other industry players.

Furthermore, during a crisis or campaign, it helps highlight the cost or return to the company.

The reputation score is an ideal metric for higher level management looking to understand the online performance as a summarised number. A good KPI for corporates would be to ensure the reputation score is above industry average each month.

Credibility - how influential are they?

This is one of the metrics used to understand the quality of the conversation. Without a doubt, the Internet has given everyone a voice, no matter what level of influence they may have. This is particularly important when trying to understand who is talking about your brand and whether they have the potential to be brand ambassadors.

For luxury brands, this is a particularly good metric to focus on. Understanding how many influential people are speaking about your brand in their own capacity will help identify any interesting marketing opportunities and threats.

For example, if a high portion of the negative conversation is from a credible source, that means the negativity will affect and reach a greater audience. A possible KPI here would ensuring positive 65% of conversation is from a credible source, such as a news or government agency.

On the contrary sporting brands can identify influential people who are talking about their brand, which will help push an elite brand image.

Sentiment - how exactly do they feel?

Community sentiment toward a brand is another important metric in understanding the quality of the conversation. A neutral mention is great and is equivalent to a PPC impression. However, adding negativity or positivity to a conversation adds emotion and personality to the brand.

At the end of the day, we live in an era where opinions are valued. People are either looking for advice or looking to share their experiences. Managing the negative conversation will help reduce the threats, encouraging people to use the products while ensuring negative issues don't escalate.

Alternatively, embracing a metric such as positive conversation helps build a strong community of brand evangelists and ambassadors by ensuring consumers feel appreciated.

Managing sentiment is especially important for business in the service industry; including banking, telecommunications and tourism. Websites such as TripAdvisor, the world's largest travel site, have been particularly successful because of the opportunity to identify positive and negative information.

This metric has been successful in the tourism industry because of the need for honest information, especially tapping into the "people like me" recommendation. Tourists are now accessing information about destinations and hotels prior to their visit. This has changed the approach of many suppliers because there is now a need to ensure the negative and positive data is responded to.

It is therefore vital for these industries to ensure sentiment is used as a key metric when measuring online success.

People and platforms - let's not forget who they are

Lastly, it is important to map out the conversation. Since we now work and communicate in a global environment, understanding where conversation originates is useful in identifying potential opportunities for expansion.

This can be done by looking at which countries are contributing to the greatest portion of conversation. For instance, if all your marketing efforts are focused locally, you may be able to see the returns by analysing what portion of the conversation is generated locally.

Furthermore, understanding the language in which people speak can also be pretty impressive, especially within our multicultural work environments.

This metric is especially important for companies working in diverse communities, as well as companies seeking to expand internationally. By understanding the share of voice and measuring the international conversation, this will provide concrete answers on the feasibility of an expansion into other markets.

Measuring makes all the difference

As a whole, the benefit of monitoring and analysing conversation is that, unlike before, we can actually measure it!

Companies working in competitive markets can benchmark against each other using the reputation score. Similarly, luxury brands can understand the level of influence by looking at how credible the conversation is. Furthermore service brands can differentiate between brand-love and hate towards, which acts as a good feedback mechanism for a business in terms of understanding where you excel and where you're failing to deliver. It is also fantastic for getting in touch with the people and platforms behind the conversation when looking to expand into other markets.

Ultimately, segmenting your conversation into key metrics of analysis will help towards meeting business objectives.