I received this question in a social network from a distant
friend of mine. I posted my answer to this question in the same network along
with others. I thought it would be good to share with my reader friends as
well:
Is having 1 million
fans the only way to measure social media campaigns? What do you think is the
ideal mix to measure any social media campaigns across platforms?
Crossing the mark of 1 million fans in a social media
platform is a moment of elation for any campaign manager. It may be having a
million “followers” in Twitter, or securing a million “likes” in Facebook or
may even be having a million registered users commenting on the organizational
blog.
For any given brand, this is a delightful number. But before
declaring this result as a successful marketing effort, marketing managers
should measure the efficacy of the crowd following the brand: Not everyone in this fan list is a customer,
or would like to be one. In other words there are numerous reasons why people
click on a “follow” or a “like” button in your fan page or profile. Broadly
there are four classes of fans in social media for an organization:
(a)
Customers
who care about the brand and are fans in social media
The ideal customer each brand dies to have. Brands may have
lots of loyal customers, but it is not necessary that they all become your fans
in social media. Cherish the ones who follow you. Ask their opinions and
encourage communication with them about what they like would to see changed in
the product/service/concept, and build on it.
(b)
Customers
who don’t care about the brand but are fans in social media
How many of us follow our favorite brand of coffee (not the
coffee chain, but the domestic coffee powder brand) in social media? Or how
many of us even know that they actually do have a social media page? A few
considered customers, that’s all. But does it mean that I am not a loyal
customer to my favorite brand of coffee? Definitely not. There are thousands of
little brands that add value to my daily life, and I am happy with their
product/service/concept. I even refer a few of them to friends. But in social
media? I don’t think I would be an active fan.
(c)
Non-customers
who care about the brand but are fans in social media
Usually the rich and the famous companies/groups have such
fans. Not everyone can afford a Ferrari or a Mercedes. But these are popular
brands everyone has heard/known about. But they would have a lot of fans in any
social media page. People feel good to be seen associated with such big brands.
(d)
Non
customers who don’t care about the brand but still are fans in social media
This is the bottom of the pit. Someone introduced you to a
particular brand, and you signed up to their fan page. Now you lost in touch
with that someone, but still receive email updates about the brand. Or it could
be that you found a near-to-impossible offer from a big brand asking you to
sign up in the next 24 hours and get unbelievable discounts. You signed up and
got your product. But nothing happened after that.
These four categories appear similar to the four columns in
a traditional SWOT analysis sheet. When it comes to social space a brand has to
engage followers from all four classes in order to ensure that the popularity
and visibility of the brand continues to be intact.
Additionally the organization should set up measures to
examine how many of these social media followers/fans/likers are actually
turning into customers, providing feedbacks on the products/services/offers
they receive and cooperate with the organization’s effort to improve the
visibility and acceptance of the brand. In short, the organization needs to
calculate the growth of people in “Category A,” the list of customers who care
for the brand and cooperate in the organization’s effort to improve its brand
value. Any improvement in this category directly means that the social media
efforts of the organization are moving in the right direction.
Image Courtesy: thecreativepenn.com.
