Image by Caroline via Flickr
This post has been updated from a previous edition published in December 2013.
As you prepare gifts for friends and family this holiday season, don’t leave your boss out! With performance reviews coming up in January and only a few more chances to make a good impression this year, why not give your boss the gift of “up and to the right” positive growth in the metrics you’re responsible for as a social media marketer?
If you think you deserve to be on your manager’s Nice List this year, show her these metrics:
1. Increased social engagement
Engagement: it’s your Facebook comments, Likes or shares; Twitter replies, RTs and favorites; RePins from your Pinterest boards; likes, comments and shares of your company’s LinkedIn posts; +1s, comments and shares on Google+… the list goes on. Engagement metrics measures how much and how often others interact with you and your content on social media, which showcases audience action—one very important aspect of social media health and growth.
If you can show your boss an increase in the number of people, or number of times, your social posts are driving engagement from the community, you’re golden! Focus on sharing metrics like Retweets and Shares, which represent when people amplify your content. These not only highlight the success of content, but show your ability to extend your content beyond your own audience, increasing its exposure.
2. Increased exposure
The number of followers you have matters, but what about the people who talk about your brand—how big are THEIR audiences? Exposure is the size of your brand’s potential audience, highlighting the estimated number of people that may have seen a mention. Use this metric to show your boss just how far your brand’s reach extends, and if that number has grown in the past year—perhaps due to that great influencer outreach campaign you did?—she can’t help but be pleased.
3. Follower growth
While every network has a different name for the Audience Growth Rate metric, the results your boss is looking for is the same—an increase in audience size to show you’re reaching more people and growing brand awareness. While some social media experts refer to follower counts as a vanity metric, what does matter is whether that audience, no matter how large it was to begin with, is growing.
Use your Audience Growth Rate to showcase the success of a certain campaign or other initiatives from this past year. Plus, dive deeper into the gender, age or location of new followers to showcase how you’re effectively expanding in the right demographic, helping your brand reach your target audience.
4. Increased brand mentions across the social web
Are people talking about your brand? Your boss will want to know that your company is a hot topic. Show a trendline of increased conversations over time and average conversations per day, week or month compared to last year. An aggregate number is a great starting point (for example, we monitor the number of mentions of “uberVU via Hootsuite” across all of the networks and data sources our platform tracks), and you can further impress your boss by breaking this number down to show exactly where those mentions are coming from. The more buzz, the better!
5. Increased Share of Voice
Share of Voice helps you understand how your brand or company is performing in comparison to your competitors. The metric details what percentage of mentions within your industry or space are about your brand and what percentage is about the competition. Showcase your brand’s increased Share of Voice to prove increased brand awareness and market share. Show your boss just how much of an impact you’re making in your industry!
6. Positive brand sentiment
Sentiment refers to the emotion behind a social media mention. It’s a way to measure the tone of a conversation without having to dive into individual mentions, adding important context to social conversations about your brand. Prove your brand’s positive brand health by showing your boss how your brand’s sentiment has risen over the past year. Make sure to compare your sentiment with that of top competitors so she can understand where you stack up in your industry.
What other social media marketing “gifts” will your boss receive from you this year? We hope you’ve got lots to share that will put you on the Nice list in no time!
