4I’s & 7C’s of Social Media Measurement

Folks chatting / tweeting about social media measurement love to apply cute acronyms or use alliteration to articulate their thinking or their model on how to measure social media.

Generally, I find that approach lacking.  Great for marketing hyperbole, but light on oomph and methodology.

Prime example:
I read a tweet yesterday about the 4 Is:

All were ambitiously and interestingly expressed as a return on…

…insight
…interaction
…investment
…impact.

OK.  I’m feeling a need to break my own rule and reciprocate with the 7Cs of social media measurement:

1.  Counting (site and search metrics–all the appropriate stuff we can and should count)
2.  Content (analysis, that is.  quantity and quality)
3.  Conversations (or as I like to sometimes call them conversationships)
4.  Cohesion (are folks agreeing with you?  with each other?  more importantly, are they coalescing around a core theme/idea/call to action, etc?)
5.  Community
6.  Connectedness (via network analysis:  how inter-connected, inter-related are the highly engaged/key influencers/advocates in the conversation?  how centrally located are those highly engaged / key influentials / brandvocates?  how far and and how fast is the spread?)
7.  Conversion (the so what factor…getting beyond the output and outtake into the output or impact zone…and here I don’t strictly mean conversion to a tangible like sales…it could be conversion toward any measurable MarCom or PA/issues/advocacy-based objective.  Hint on method:  have a look at Tealium or Sysomos Audience.

So how do you measure all this?

1.  Combine several approaches (content analysis, search and site metrics, network analysis, primary research), and
2.  Have those approaches be flexible enough to account for/prioritize/weight different objectives and campaign types.

Thoughts?

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