Facebook ‘Likes’ are not a key business metric

Businesses are misguided when they rely on the number of Facebook fans or Twitter followers as the main measurement of their social media efforts. Rather, businesses should focus on the outcome and conversion resulting from such numbers.

Web design company ICON found in its industry research about 'Social Media Marketing in Malta' that measuring return on investment (ROI) is a major concern amongst marketers.

"Counting the number of fans and followers is quite easy and straightforward as this is a default index and can effortlessly be compared to competitors," says Daniela Grech, ICON's e-marketing specialist. "Yet marketers should focus more on business goals that fans and followers yield for them, rather than the quantity of fans themselves."

As very well described by Hal Thomas during the 'Geekend Roadshow', measuring social media ROI is similar to calculating the ROI of a paper business card. How would you calculate the ROI of all business cards that you hand out at a conference?

The same applies to traditional marketing - you would not ask for an ROI of a phone call, but you would ask for the conversion rate of a sales call. So rather than bluntly talking about social media ROI, marketers must want to measure return of specific activities done via social media.

As explained by Thomas himself: "Social media is not the stopping place. It's the starting place. Marketers have to take action on their prospects - they have to take their fans and turn them from passive fans to transacting customers." After all, social media is the vehicle not the destination.

"On social media, businesses must listen and learn how such discussions may benefit the different departments of an organisation. Since fan numbers do not define success, it would be more useful to compare interaction levels amongst 'friends' and analyse patterns," Grech says.

"For instance, if you are a chef and your fans interact more when you post updates about dessert recipes rather than meal recipes, then you might want to include more about desserts in your next book. This would translate in more success, and it further extends the usefulness of social media measurement beyond the sales and marketing department."

Every department within the organisation is interested in its own metrics. Thus social media ROI is specific to the actions completed via social channels rather than the channel itself.