Social Media Measurement Analytics and Metrics means different things depending on what your job is according to NetSavey's Nathan Gilliatt who posted on Sorting out social media measurement :
"…Social media measurement has multiple competing definitions coming from the various specialties that have an interest in understanding social media."
Nathan Gilliatt brakes down Social Media Measurement Analytics to 4 distinct types:
- Measuring Online Audiences
- Tracking Social Media Content
- PR (Buzz)
- Market Research
I'd have to disagree with one point that's made here:
"…Advertising is the only application where standard metrics actually matter. Media and advertisers want a reliable ratings system for pricing and tracking online ad buys. Other applications need reliable data to generate KPIs, but diversity in sources and methods shouldn't be a problem."
While we might not be able to arrive at standard metrics yet, for a variety of reasons, we do need them and I don't think that many people really believe, or want to believe that standard metrics don't matter for most analytics.
In fact, part of what we're trying to achieve in the Social Media Committee of the Web Analytics Association, which I am the director of, is a set of standard definations for Social Media and how to measure it that we can make available to vendors - as a guide (that they can use, if they want to).
We had a meeting this week and are beginning work on the Social Media Standards Document - but it's just at the very beginning - and hopefully, it will take a life of it's own as committee members run with it.
By the way here's an excellent video on Social Media Measurement that features Eric T. Peterson and Jeremiah Owyang filmed last month in Portland.
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