Why measure at all?

I spotted from Twitter that a number of people were heading along to the Chinwag event on social media measurement last night. I couldn't attend but look forward to reading the reports and thoughts of those that could.

But the idea of 'social media measurement' got me thinking: why do we seek to measure social media? The thought led me to two immediate answers:

1. Because as the management rule goes - if you can't measure it, you can't manage it
2. Because we need to justify ROI for a) clients b) investors c) advertisers

But then I asked myself are these two reasons the best and and most compelling reasons to try to measure social media? Possibly according to the following counter-arguments:

1. the opportunities offered by social media are born of the fact that as a (social) medium it resists management and control, so why try to measure it in order to manage it?
2. is commidifying or monetising members of online communities and their networks and itneractions the best way to measure and judge ROI?

I'm not saying we shouldn't measure social media per se, but rather asking why we need to  measure it?

Technorati tags: Chinwag, social media, measurement, ROI, management

Comments

[David Brain]

The biggest lie in marketing is"if you can't measure it don't do it". Measurement should be seen as a useful tool not some sort of holy destination.

[Will McInnes]

In reference to David's above comment, funnily enough one of the things that I have seen buzz monitoring firms present on is how they have been able to show clear and tangible business results from above-the-line marketing spend (big advertising campaigns) - the kind of marketing that people do even though they generally can't measure or prove its value.

[Robin Grant]

Simon - the simple answer is so we can get clients to stump up the cash for it...

[tim hoang]

I'm with Robin on this. We need metrics in place so we can justify what we are doing to clients or they won't buy it.When the ad industry says you get XXX opportunities to see, it's much better than well it's been picked up this blogger...he's quite influential to these people but we're not realy quite sure what effect he's had. By the way can you give us a bit more money?

It's all bollocks at the end of the day. One just looks a bit better

[Simon Collister]

I agree with those saying measurement = client buy-in. But my wider point is two-fold: is this type of measurement right, or are we selling old-skool metrics for a totally different ebvironment; secondly, if we are selling this to clients then aren't we perpetuating a broken metric?

[Eamon]

I think measurement is useful but shouldn't have to be the be-all end-all. Similarly, data is always useful. But if you can't get hold of it / afford it, qualitative / subjective research on its own, can, also, be highly effective.

[Simon Collister]

Hi Eamon. Thanks for stopping by. Totally agree with you. As David Brain points out earlier in the comments measurement for measurement's sake can be counter-productive.

[Sam Michel]

Agree with lots of the points above, particularly not just measuring because it's possible. There's way too much information round anyway.

Aside from justifying client budgets, it's important to know that time/effort is being spent effectively.

One of the things that prompted the event, which unfortunately we didn't get to touch on, is measuring the effectiveness of different social media opportunities/channels rather than a general 'hum' of conversation.

Wouldn't it be great to know which social networks/tools work best for particular activities?

[Shel Holtz]

If I undertake a blogger outreach effort, I need to know if it worked. Sure, I need to know so I can tell the client, but I also need to know so I can figure out how to improve it next time around. If I try something different, did it work? I wouldn't know if I didn't measure. It's not about control, but it is very much about managing your end of the conversation so it can be as effective as possible.

[Simon Collister]

Nice angle, Shel. Measurement for self-improvement: I hadn't thought of that one; but can you presume that if you are getting better your results are getting better too?

[Douglas W. Hubbard]

My book "How to Measure Anything" partly addresses this. You are right to ask why you need to measure it before you measure it. There is an approach in decision theory for computing the value of a measurement by the reduction in uncertainty it provides about decisions with economics conseqences. If you can't identify any decisions with economic consequences, which have uncertain outcomes, that aren't potentially changed by this informatin, then the measurement has no value.

But I might ask, first, what *about* social media is someone interested in measuring? I discuss some objectives in my book. For example,we can use social media to measure the proliferation of ideas for, say, political or marketing campaigns. If we find more refernces in personal blogs or Myspace pages to "favorite candidate" or "favorite movie" then we may get information not only about whether a campaign is working but which demographics it reaches. So, like the Gallup Poll, we would measure it to learn something about what people like, watch, read, and so on it order to make other decisions about products or PR efforts, not necessarilly to control the subjects of the Poll. The advantage of measuring the social media is that, in many cases, it might actually be both cheaper and more informative than a phone survey. People provide a surprising amount of information about themselves.