• 92% of marketers say social media is important to their business (Social Media Examiner)
• 73% plan to increase spending on marketing analytics (The CMO Survey)
• Only 42% are able to measure their social activities (Social Media Examiner)

If social media is so important, why are most marketers unable to measure it? Do they not know the social media metrics that matter most?

Register for a Free Webinar on Tuesday, February 9th, at 11:00 am EST to learn and ask questions about the 10 Social Media Metrics Every Marketer Needs to Know. This webinar is brought to you by Biznology.

So you know now, here are the 10 social media metrics that matter most.

1. KEYWORDS: Smart keywords choices and placement on social networks give your brand a better chance of being found. Consumers that are exposed to a brand on social media are 180% more likely to search for that brand on search engines according to a Group M study. Google Trends and the Google Keyword Planner are two tools to use; the former identifies keywords that people are searching with increasing search interest and the latter provides their monthly keyword volume.
2. LINKS: Social media links from blog posts and social posts are another primary means of raising social and search presence. These come from blog posts and social posts. Track the number of links pointing to your website and/or blog, and examine the source of new links. Open Site Explorer from SEOmoz and bit.ly are great inbound tracking services. They are also free if that’s any additional motivation.
3. REACH: Reach is the potential audience for a message based on total follower count (Twitter, Pinterest and LinkedIn followers, total Likes on your Facebook page). If your boards have 1,000 followers on Pinterest, then each of your pins could potentially reach 1,000 people. Facebook considers a post reaches someone when it’s shown in that person’s News Feed. Through Facebook Insights, Facebook provides “total reach,” which includes the number of unique people who saw any activity from a Page as well as paid vs. organic reach.
4. ENGAGEMENT: Actions such as Like, Share, Comment, ReTweet and Favorite measures how much and how often others interact with you and your content in social media. Radian6 and SimplyMeasured are tools that show the percentage of people reached who engage in your content, how they respond and the differences by social network.
5. SHARE OF VOICE: Reach and Engagement are important to know not only about your brand but your competitors. Quite often, a smaller brand with a lower level of Reach can distinguish itself by displaying a higher level of Engagement to the benefit of their business.
6. SENTIMENT: A “Sentiment Analysis” tells you if the people who comments are saying positive, negative or neutral things. It’s done by computer for each social network and expressed as a ratio of positive/negative. A “Sentiment Analysis” provides direction for your communications strategy. Social-Searcher has excellent social analytics, including “Sentiment Analysis,” anyone can use.
7. WEBSITE VISITS: According to Shareaholic, Facebook now drives 23% of referral traffic to a website. It’s important to know just how much traffic is coming to a website from people who have gotten to know you on social networks. This is easy to see from Google Analytics, perhaps the best social media measurement tool of them all. Use Google Analytics to measure the remaining top metrics (11-14) on this list.
8. TRAFFIC SOURCES: The percent of people who come to your website from social networks can be easily found in Google Analytics. People like to business with people they know. Traffic Sources are a primary indicator if social media efforts are succeeding in sending people to your website.
9. BOUNCE RATE: The percent of people who get to your website, view one page and leave is the Bounce Rate. It’s considered one of the best metrics to gauge a website’s relevance. It’s a key metric to know in general and to compare to the Bounce Rate of those who come from social networks.
10. CONVERSIONS: The metric that has the highest business value and relates most directly to return on investment (ROI) is Conversions. This is defined as the desired outcome (buy, download, view, subscribe) divided by Visits. Because Conversions are so important, there may be more than one. The one that is closest to direct revenue is the Macro Conversion; others that lead Macro Conversion are called Micro Conversion. Together, they define buying behaviors for your brand.

Do these social media metrics help you to see how social media can build your business? Will you be attending this Free Webinar on 10 Social Media Metrics Every Marketer should know on Tuesday, February 9th, at 11:00 am EST?

If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it – Peter Drucker

1. 87% of marketers want to know how to measure their return on investment for social media activities (source: Social Media Examiner)
2. 85% use social networks in some way; only 14% tie financial metrics to it. (source: AdAge)
3. Only 8% of companies say they can determine Return on Investment (ROI) from their social media spending (source: Econsultancy)

Social media analytics is the practice of gathering data from blogs and social media websites and analyzing that data to make business decisions.

Do social media analytics help determine ROI from social media activities? Here are 7 case studies where social media analytics pay off.

1. BARCLAY’S: Launched a mobile banking application called PingIt. In the days following the launch, Barclays made significant changes to the app as a result of real-time social media analysis. The sentiment analysis showed although  the app was very well received, a small proportion of mentions were negative. It was quickly apparent that many users were unhappy that the app didn’t work for under 18’s. It wasn’t only teenagers that were unhappy, but also parents that couldn’t transfer money to them. This could easily create a PR disaster, but the data allowed Barclays to act quickly. Within the week, 16 and 17 year-olds were given access to the app, showing that Barclays were responsive to customer feedback.
2. KEEN: An outdoor shoe manufacturing company based in Portland, Oregon with a well-respected brand and a strong and loyal following, built a social analytics framework to help understand social media campaigns, The framework included metrics such as Aurthorship, Reach, Engagement, Sentiment, Influence and Effect. Keen established Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that traced back to business objectives. Page Likes increased by 92%, Post Reach increased by 342% and Post Engagement increased by 137%.
3. LIPSY LONDON: a British women’s fashion brand, used social media analytics to look for linguistic pattern on how potential customer behave online to focus on engaging the right customers at the right time in their purchase journey. This was used to shape the paid and natural search strategies as well as a display campaign. This generated a 350% increase in revenue, 1,500 new unique users and over 8,000 visits to date.
4. ROXY THEATER: A music theater in West Hollywood, California where Bob Marley, The Clash and Bruce Springstein, among others, had played. They used TweetReach to measure the number of people their Tweets reach, as well as the number and quality of Retweets. They also used Klout, which helped them compare their efforts to similar businesses.  They used the numbers in a TweetReach report to demonstrate to a talent buyer that they could reach a larger potential audience through Twitter so they could stop advertising in certain local publications. AOL City’s Best just named The Roxy as the best live music venue in Los Angeles. They just passed 100,000 Facebook followers and have nearly 50,000 Twitter followers.
5. SAMSUNG: Had no scalable business model for integrating social media with customer support, plus no way to track building PR crises. They identified relevant keywords and major influencers, advocacy and community involvement. They established benchmarks for content volume around keywords and sentiment levels. Within 2 months, they had 325,000+ targeted product conversations tracked to establish benchmarks and 1 PR crisis alerted, processed and managed.
6. TOMS SHOES: On April 10th thousands of people around the world ditched their footwear for TOMS Shoes annual “One Day Without Shoes;” a campaign aimed at showing the impact a pair of shoes can have on a child’s life. It is heavily rooted in social media – supporters share experiences by Tweeting the #withoutshoes hashtag. When they broke down the data hour by hour on 4/10, they saw the support building throughout the day and then sustaining with a large spike in to the evening. Drilling down, Toms saw how the campaign drew in major celebrities, media, and influencers along with international support during this period.
7. YALE: Started a Tumblr blog to create, preserve and disseminate knowledge through infographics, online Q&A’s and educational content. They used social analytics to improve content strategy, determine the best time to post and identify influencers who are sharing their Tumblr posts. The Tumblr campaign increased followers by +142% and achieved more than 1,200 notes with two posts.

Do these case studies prove the value of social media analytics to you? Does your company need help understanding and establishing a framework for social media analytics?

This is my 239th blogpost. That may be more than some, but not as many as other bloggers I know.

Like others, this blog began as an outlet for expression. I was starting a business. Like others who have followed this path, I said if not now, when. Only the when was in the midst of the worst recession since the great depression. This blog became a way of coping and putting values and beliefs out there when not much was coming in.

Writing helped me through hard times. Circumstances improved. Today, this blog is one of our most valuable assets for a full service digital (digital, social, mobile) consultancy and agency that build brands using proven relationship principles and ROI.

Research shows I’m not alone. How? Here are 10 studies that show writing helps health and well-being.

1. PUTS YOU IN TOUCH WITH YOURSELF: Scientific evidence supports that journaling provides unexpected benefits. The act of writing accesses your left brain, which is analytical and rational. While your left brain is occupied, your right brain is free to create, intuit and feel. In sum, writing removes mental blocks and allows you to use all of your brainpower to better understand yourself, others and the world around you. – PyschCentral
2. MAKES YOU MORE OPTIMISTIC: People in a study who expressed gratitude in writing once a week for two months were more optimistic about life (and, interestingly, exercised more), compared with people who didn’t. – Harvard Business Review
3. REDUCES STRESS, AIDS IMMUNITY: Writing about difficult, even traumatic, experiences appears to be good for health on several levels – raising immunity and other health measures and improving life functioning. – American Psychological Association
4. SPEEDS HEALING: Writing down your thoughts and feelings after a traumatic event can actually make physical wounds heal faster, according to a study from New Zealand researchers. – Scientific America
5. INCREASES RESILIENCE: Studies show that writing during difficult times may help you find meaning in life’s challenges and become more resilient in the face of obstacles. – University of Minnesota
6. HELPS YOU SLEEP BETTER: Spending just 15 minutes a night writing down what you’re thankful for could do wonders for your sleep, according to an Applied Psychology: Health and Well-Being study. Researchers found that study participants who wrote down a list of things they were grateful for before bed experienced longer, and better, sleep. – Psychology Today
7. DECREASES ILLNESS: In one study, five months after writing, a significant interaction emerged such that writing about trauma, one’s best possible self, or both were associated with decreased illness compared with controls. – Southern Methodist University
8. REDUCES DEPENDENCE ON DRUGS AND DOCTORS: In a study of college students, one group wrote about personally traumatic life events for 15 minutes on four consecutive days. The other group of students wrote about trivial topics. Compared to those who wrote about trivia, the students who wrote about traumatic experiences used fewer pain relievers over the next six months. They also visited the campus health center less often. – Aetna
9. HELPS CANCER PATIENTS THINK DIFFERENTLY ABOUT THEIR DISEASE: A study showed that expressive writing could help cancer patients not only think about their disease in a different way, but also improve their quality of life. – The Oncologist
10. IMPROVES OVERALL HEALTH AND WELL-BEING: Participants who wrote about their deepest thoughts and feelings reported significant benefits in both objectively assessed and self-reported physical health 4 months later, with less frequent visits to health centers and a trend towards fewer days out of role owing to illness. – Pennebaker Study

In many of these studies, participants wrote for as little as 15 minutes a day but did it regularly. Is this investment in writing worth it for your health and well being?

Content marketing is the marketing technique of creating and distributing relevant and valuable content to attract, acquire, and engage a clearly defined and understood target audience. Content marketing subscribes to the notion that delivering high-quality, relevant, and valuable information to prospects and customers drives profitable consumer action.

How important is content marketing to profitably running a business?

The marketing decisions any company on the internet has to make is how to invest between “owned,” (a website, video, CRM system), “earned,” (communications that commented, liked and/or shared) and “paid” (ads – search, display, banner, native) properties. Anything a company can do is going to fit in one of these areas.

What sort of return should your company expect from content marketing investments in these areas? Here are 30 hard facts about the content marketing to drive ROI.

OWNED

• 93% of B2B marketers report to using content marketing in their marketing mix (source: Custom Content Council)
• 90% of consumers find custom content useful and 78% believe that organizations providing custom content are interested in building good relationships with them. (Inbound Writer)
• 86% of B2C marketers include content marketing in their marketing mix (source: Content Marketing Institute)
• 81% create content for social media (source: Custom Content Council)
• 73% of B2B organizations have a person dedicated to overseeing content marketing strategy (source: Content Marketing Institute)
• 61% of consumers say they feel better about, and are more likely to buy from, a company that delivers custom content. (Custom Content Council)
• 58% of B2B marketers are planning to increase their budgets on content marketing in the next 12 months (source: Content Marketing Institute)
• 55% of B2B marketers are planning to increase their budgets on content marketing in the next year (source: Custom Content Marketing Institute)
• 40-40% are expecting to increase their output for web updates, SEO content and social content next year (source: Custom Content Council)
• 30% of B2B budgets are currently allocated to content marketing (source: Custom Content Council)
• 28% of B2C budgets are currently allocated to content marketing (source: Custom Content Council)
• 43.9 billion was spent on custom content spending on production and distribution last year (up 9.2% versus the previous year) (source: Custom Content Council)

EARNED

• 97% of websites with blogs see more indexed pages on search engines (source: Content+)
• 82% of consumers trust a company more when the CEO/leadership team are active social media users (source: TopRank)
• 82% of marketers who blog see positive ROI for their inbound marketing (source: HubSpot)
• 70% of people want to learn about product through content rather than traditional advertising (source: Business Intelligence)
• 67% more leads per month on average are generated by B2B companies that blog than non-blogging firms  (Social Media B2B)
• 50% of buying decisions are made because of word of mouth (source: Content+)
• Roughly 50% of marketers struggle with producing enough content, and producing content that engages (source: Content Marketing Institute)
• 23% of all time online is spent on social media and blogs (source: Content Marketing Institute)
• 10-20% of website content drives 90% of it’s web traffic; 0.5% of that content drives over 50% of traffic (source: Inbound Writer)
• 27,000,000 pieces of content are shared each day (AOL)
• Top 3 reasons people follow brands on social media are interesting content (Content+)
• Blogs give websites 434% more indexed pages and 97% more indexed links (Content+)

PAID

• 79% of marketers report that their organizations are shifting to branded content (source: Forrester)
• 77% of business buyers prefer different content at various stages of the product research process (source: SalesForce)
• 72% of Marketers think that branded content is more effective than magazine advertisements (source: Content Council)
• 69% say it’s superior to direct mail and PR (source: Content Council)
• Content marketing costs 62% less than traditional marketing and generates about 3 times as many leads (source: Business Marketing Insider)
• 62% of companies outsource their content marketing. (Mashable)
• three content marketing tactics that deliver the highest ROI are featured articles (cited by 62% of marketers), video (52%) and white papers (46%) (source: eMarketer)

To understand the anatomy of content marketing, below is an infographic from Content+.

Do these facts convince you content marketing could change your ROI?

Can you teach an old dog new tricks?

If the old dog is the C-suite and competency in digital are the new tricks, the jury is out. But the C-Suite wants to learn. That’s according to three sources: IBM Global C-Suite Study, MIT Sloan Management Review and Gartner Digital Marketing Spending Survey.

What in particular? Here are 23 lessons in digital the C-Suite wants to learn.

1. 94% of CMO’s believe advanced analytics play a big role in helping them realize their goals (source: IBM Global C-Suite Study)
2. 87% of CMO’s want to integrate cross-channel touch points (source: IBM Global C-Suite Study)
3. 83% of CMO’s want to put analytics in place to capture customer insights (source: IBM Global C-Suite Study)
4. 79% of CEO’s plan to build digital ecosystems capable of supporting complex customer interactions (source: IBM Global C-Suite Study)
5. 78% of executives and managers say achieving digital transformation will be critical for their organization within two years (source: MIT Sloan Management Review)
6. 78% want social networks to foster collaboration (source: IBM Global C-Suite Study)
7. 70% of marketing organizations have a chief technologist on payroll; 80% of them report to marketing (source: Gartner Digital Marketing Spending Survey)
8. 69% want a digitally enabled supply chain (source: IBM Global C-Suite Study)
9. 67% of CMOs feel under prepared because they have made very little progress in coping with social media (source: IBM Global C-Suite Study)
10. 64% say the pace of technology change in their organization is too slow (source: MIT Sloan Management Review)
11. 63% of CMO’s say their companies lack a cohesive social media plan (source: IBM Global C-Suite Study)
12. 53%  indicate their leaders say they “don’t have time” for digital transformation (source: MIT Sloan Management Review)
13. 52% say their organization doesn’t even know how to proceed with digital transformation (source: MIT Sloan Management Review)
14. Up to 50% of digital marketing activities are outsourced (source: Gartner Digital Marketing Spending Survey)
15. 45% of C-Suite executive say they are highly or somewhat dissatisfied with their management structure for digital (source: MIT Sloan Management Review)
16. 41% of savings from digital marketing are reinvested (source: Gartner Digital Marketing Spending Survey)
17. 40% say their company resists digital transformation with a “this is the way we’ve always done it” explanation (source: MIT Sloan Management Review)
18. 38% say digital transformation is a permanent fixture on their CEO’s agenda, and only 36% say their CEO has shared a vision for digital transformation with employees (source: MIT Sloan Management Review)
19. 27% say the critical time to implement digital transformation has passed— meaning they’ve missed the boat and are now just trying to survive (source: MIT Sloan Management Review)
20. 25% of companies will have a chief digital officer in the C-suite by 2015 (source: Gartner Digital
21. 23% of respondents fear they’ll lose influence in their organizations if they push for a digital transformation (source: MIT Sloan Management Review)
22. Only 15% of companies rank in the “most mature” stage of digital transformation, while 65% are considered “least mature” (source: MIT Sloan Management Review)
23. Only 14% says they are highly satisfied with the management structure for digital (source: MIT Sloan Management Review)

If you’re in the C-Suite and want to improve your company’s digital competency, consider a Mini-MBA in digital marketing at Rutgers Executive Executive where I teach or a University of California Extension Courses. Or just get in touch with me.

Does this convince you the C-Suite wants to learn digital? Do you think you can teach an old dog new tricks?