Gauging Your Social Media Health

As we are immersed in the multitude of marketing tools available in the digital world, it is interesting to learn about the various metrics that exist to assess their impact, particularly in the nascent social media space. Mashable describes nine key performance indicators for social media marketing tools and why they should matter to marketers. They are as follows:

   1. Share of Voice

   2. Brand Volume

   3. Engagement

   4. Interaction Per Post

   5. Sentiment Analysis

   6. Social Click-Through Rate

   7. Key Influencer Mentions

   8. Platform Reach

   9. Mobile Mentions

While some of these indicators are obviously important and easy to track, I wonder how one would gather the data for certain ones like Sentiment Analysis. How easy is it to compile information on how people "feel" about brands on social media? Is there a service out there that scientifically tracks whenever people rave about products or trash them on blogs?

More importantly, it is not clear how many of these metrics tie to the bottom line. "Even with all these metrics, it is important to remember that there is no magic formula that will simply turn your social media marketing efforts into dollars," the writer concedes. "The social realm is and always will be a rapidly evolving marketplace of information." After all, social media juggernaut Facebook continues to struggle in gettingskeptics in the advertising world to buy into its value proposition. Yes, people waste hours away each day checking out their friends' photos and news feeds, but many businesses aren't convinced that users are more likely to buy their products.