Social media isn’t like other traditional methods of marketing like direct mail or e-mail campaigns. These have set objectives and ways to track response mechanisms to check open and response rates.

Social media, on the other hand because of the nature of the beast, doesn’t have those types of metrics in place. Social media isn’t like other traditional methods of marketing like direct mail or e-mail campaigns…and please don’t do it because everyone else is!

Thomas McMahon in a recent post, 7 considerations for tracking social media success, outlines some great suggestions on how you may want to evaluate your social media tracking.

Here are some highlights:

• Quality over Quantity - The only really important numbers are the ones that are following you that are truly engaged and interested in what you’re saying.
• Hearing vs. Listening - You need to realize that not everyone is always hearing you. You want to connect with your listeners and hopefully get them engaged.
• Participate and Engage - Social media is about involved. You just can’t post articles…you need to participate in conversations.
• Be Where Your Action Is - Define your niche market and then find out where like-minded people hang out. Those are the forums, blogs and communities you need to be active in.

Remember, social media is a long-term investment with no short-term ROI. Be patient, build your network and trust within your target audience and social will pay off in the long run.

What other considerations should be on this list? I’d love to hear from you.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 16th, 2010 at 9:20 am and is filed under Marketing Tips, Social Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.