With interactive media, it's not enough to know how many people viewed the content, or even transacted. Find out about the new metric needed from Networked Insights' CEO.
There's a new metric in town.
The web has changed; companies are talking about things like their "Facebook strategy" or their "social media efforts." Participation is no longer an option for internet users; it's required.
While the technologies for a participatory web have existed for a while now, the adoption of these technologies by companies and users has finally reached a point of critical mass. But with these changes, traditional metrics and ways of tracking web marketing and PR success have not caught up to where marketing is today. What now defines marketing success is evolving, but one golden metric still has yet to become the standard.
It all started with eyeballs, the first key metric used to evaluate web usage. Eyeballs determine how many people see your site. It's a useful metric still, but only shows how many people have seen your site and not what they did while they were there.
Then along came transactions. Combined with eyeballs, marketers and businesses could track their efforts and see the end result: Did they make money or not?
Both of these metrics are an important part of anyone's assessment of their online business or site. However, as new web technologies continue to add an element of participation and influence for web users, a new metric is needed to encapsulate how people's discussions and communication with each other is affecting your brand, and ultimately, revenue.
This new metric is interactions: How many interactions have occurred, who is interacting, what is being said in these interactions, and most importantly, how these interactions have created advocates that drive revenue and relationships.
Customers in a social network or on a blog may not be using your Facebook application or your widget, but may be interacting with other people in their own trusted networks about your company, brand, products and industry, which has a profound effect on future relationships and interactions that person may have with you and your brand.
Here's an example to help put this in perspective. Say you are hosting a networking event and want to gauge the success of the event. As a baseline measurement, you would want to know how many tickets were sold (transactions) and how many people came (eyeballs). These are good things to know, but they don't necessarily give the whole picture of how successful the event was. What the holistic view of the event is missing, as are many web entities, is an understanding of the interactions. How many people met, exchanged business cards, discussed business deals and will connect again in the future? These are metrics that more deeply and accurately define the true success of the event.
The same goes for the web. In social networks, blogs and other social media formats, interactions have become a key metric in determining the influence and effect on your brand. How many people have signed up is good to know, but to get the real pulse of what's going on in your community or network, it's all about interactions and how engaged people are with your company and with each other.
When interactions can be mined for relevant and informative data, they become far more valuable to companies and can not only inform marketing, but all other aspects of a business as well. If a mass of customers is talking about their needs and wants from certain products and brands, then marketing, product development, sales and all other aspects of a business can benefit from this information. Knowing who is interacting with who identifies influencers and common interests in a network of customers.
The opportunity with analyzing interactions is huge. As changes happen on the web, metrics need to evolve as well to help monitor and evaluate what's really going on with your business and its customers and to truly gauge the success of social media and online marketing efforts.
The ability for customers to converse, participate and voice their opinions on the web is no longer a luxury; it's the norm. With all of that valuable information, it's time companies use it to get to the heart of customer insights and sentiment. The interactions are there and ready to give your company a competitive advantage. If you are ready to truly understand your customers, hear their unbiased voice, and accurately measure the success of your marketing efforts, the golden metric you've been looking for is interactions.
Daniel Neely is CEO of Networked Insights. Read full bio.