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Emerging Standards in Social

Media

Social Media Monitoring & Measurement

London, UK

March 25, 2013

About Us

Katie Paine is Chief Marketing Officer

of News Group an international

monitoring, measurement & social

media company.

The company she founded, KDPaine

& Partners now part of Salience

Insight, News Group’s Measurement

& Insight Practice.

We provide customized research to

help you define and measure your

success.

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What is a standard?

A published specification that: – establishes a common language;

– contains a technical specification or other precise

criteria;

– is designed to be used consistently, as a rule, a

guideline, or a definition.

Source: British Standards Institute

Retrieved May 28, 2012 from

http://www.standardsbookshop.com/what.htm

#SMMStandards

“The Coalition” “The

Conclave”

Media Ratings Council

Clients

AMEC

Council of PR Firms

Institute for PR

PRSA

Global Alliance

IABC

SNCR

DAA

WOMMA

ARF

FIBEP

CIPR

PRCA Dell

General Motors

McDonalds

Ford

Procter & Gamble

SAS

Southwest Airlines

Thomson Reuters

AAAA

ANA

IAB

WOMMA

Advert. & Media Cos.

Cross-Industry Collaboration

Process for Standards Market-driven

Voluntary / non-exclusionary

Use International Standards Organization process

Broad industry input

Promote fair competition

Compliant with anti-trust laws

Posted to www.smmstandards.org

Conclave/

Coalition

Development

Interim Standards

2-month Comment

Period

Approved Standard

Top Priorities

1. Content Sourcing & Methods

2. Reach & Impressions

3. Engagement

4. Influence & Relevance

5. Opinion & Advocacy

6. Impact & Value

Content Standard All social media measurement reports should include

a standard “content sourcing and methodology”

table that helps clients know “what’s inside” the

product for full transparency and easy comparison

(like a food nutrition label).

#SMMStandards – Sources & Methods Transparency Table www.smmstandards.org

Timeframe Analyzed

Research Lead(s)

Channels Analyzed

Data/Content Sources

Analysis Depth ☐ Automated ☐ Manual ☐ Hybrid ☐ All Content Reviewed ☐ Rep. Sample

Source Languages

Search Languages

Sentiment Coding ☐ Automated ☐ Manual ☐ Hybrid ☐ Manual Sampling: _____________________

☐ 3-pt scale ☐ 5-pt scale ☐ Other scale ☐ At entity level ☐ Paragraph/doc level

Spam/Bot Filtering ☐ Automated ☐ Manual ☐ Hybrid ☐ Includes news releases ☐ Excludes releases

Metrics Calculation and Sources

-- Reach

-- Engagement

-- Influence

-- Opinion/Advocacy

Proprietary Methods

Search Parameters See full search string list on page ___ of this report

Transparency Table

#2: Standards for Reach & Impressions

All impression numbers are flawed for a variety of

reasons

Multipliers should never be used.

A divider is more appropriate because it is less

than 10% of what is posted is actually seen.

OTS must be specific to a particular channel – i.e.

For Twitter OTS is the number of first line

followers. For Facebook it is the number of fans to

a page.

#2: Reach & Impressions

ITEM= a post, micro-post, article, or other instance

appearing for the first time in a digital media.

MENTION= refers to a brand, organization,

campaign, or entity that is being measured.

REACH represents the total number of unique people

who had an opportunity to see an ITEM or a valid

reproduction of that ITEM across any digital media.

IMPRESSIONS represent the gross number of items

that could have been seen by all people, including

repeats. The term “displayed” applies across

channels, browsers, devices, and other methods by

which an individual might see an item.

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#3: Standards for Engagement

Engagement = some action beyond exposure, and implies an

interaction between two or more parties. Social media engagement

is an action that typically occurs in response to content on an owned

channel – i.e. when someone engages with you.

Conversation = some form of online or offline discussion by

customers, citizens, stakeholders, influencers or other third parties

about your organization, brand or relevant issues.

Any measure of Engagement and Conversation must be tied

to the goals and objectives for your organization, brand or

program.

Engagement and Conversation both occur offline and online, and

both must be considered if you intend to integrate your metrics with

other marketing or communications efforts.

Standards for Engagement cont.

Engagement counts such actions as: likes, comments, shares,

votes, +1s, links, retweets, video views, content embeds, etc.

Engagement types and levels are unique to specific channels

but can be aggregated for cross-channel comparison.

Engagement should be measured by the percentage of

your audience engaged by day/week/month; and the percentage

of engagement for each item of content your organization

publishes.

Conversation counts such items as blog posts, comments,

tweets, Facebook posts/comments, video posts, replies, etc.

Conversation types and levels are unique to specific channels

but can be aggregated for cross-channel comparison.

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Conversation should be measured by the total number of “items”

that mention the brand, organization or issue (within and/or

across channels); the number of “mentions” within each item;

and the “opportunities to see” for each item, calculated by the

readership at the time of posting (unique daily/monthly

visitors, first-order fans/followers, view counts, etc.).

Engagement manifests differently by channel but is typically

measurable at various points based on effort required, inclusion

of opinion and how shared with others.

Engagement and Conversation could be, but are not

necessarily, outcomes. Organizations may weight Engagement

and Conversation types differently based on their goals, but

Engagement and Conversation metrics should be consistent

across an organization.

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Standards for Engagement cont.

• Influence is something that takes place beyond

engagement

• Influence happens when you are persuaded to change

behavior or opinion that would otherwise not have changed.

Influence happens online and off line and both should be

considered

• Any influence score requires transparency

• You can measure what influenced change to happen, but that

is not in the scope of this effort. Survey research measures

what people say they are influence by. Data analysis can

measure the impact of a campaign on a business outcome

• Influence cannot be expressed in a single score or algorithm

• Can be an outlet or an individual

• Influence must be tied to a specific topic, brand or issue

#4: Influence & Relevance

• Should include some combination of the following five elements:

• Reach

• Engagement around individual

• Relevance to topic

• Frequency of posts around the topic

• Audience impact as measured by the ability to get the target

audience to change behavior or opinion.

• If an individual scores a 0 on one element, they don’t count

#4: Influence & Relevance

• Sentiment is over-rated and over-used

• Sentiment reliability varies by vendor and approach – be

transparent

• Recommendations (“try it” or “avoid it”)

• Feeling/Emotions (“That product makes me feel happy”)

• Intended action (“I’m going to buy that product

tomorrow”)

• Coding definitions, consistency and transparency are

critical

#5 Opinion & Advocacy

• Impact and value will always be dependent on client

objectives

• Outcomes must be defined in advance

• “ROI” should be strictly limited to measurable financial impact

• Use cost/benefit, cost effectiveness/efficiency metrics instead

• Value can be calculated in positive returns (sales, reputation,

etc.) or avoided negative returns (risk mitigated, costs

avoided)

• Key performance indicators and balanced scorecards are

helpful to connect social media impact to business

results/language

#6: Impact & Value

Questions?

For more information on measurement, read my blog:

http://kdpaine.blogs.com or subscribe to The

Measurement Standard:

www.themeasurementstandard.com

For a copy of this presentation go to:

http://www.kdpaine.com

Follow me on Twitter: KDPaine

Friend me on Facebook: Katie Paine

Or call me at 1-603-682-0735

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