Having grown up in the subscription and later the catalog marketing worlds, one basic concept permeated everything we did. Every effort, every offer, every list and every test is assigned a key code, an alpha-numeric code that enable results to be tracked, measured, and attributed to the source from which the customer acquisition or sale came.

This practice of using key codes can and should be used to measure social media marketing efforts.  If it sounds too complicated, it’s really not. It’s more about discipline than it is sophistication, and measuring ROI is all about discipline.

How do you capture key codes?

1. Create a code to attach to your special coupon or offer.
2. Publish the codes from Twitter, Facebook or whatever social network where a majority of your customers reside.
3. Create a field on the input screen that the customer will use to redeem the coupon or offer.
4. Refine a system for ensuring the codes are added to your customer database.

How do you create key codes?

Depending on how expansive your marketing programs are, you’ll probably want to think about a 5 to 6-digit coding system. Consider this as a possible structure:

Digit 1: Alpha or numeric character to identify source of conversion. A simple example would be T=Twitter, F=Facebook, E=Email.

Digit 2: Year of campaign/effort.

Digit 3: Month or season of campaign/effort.

Digit 4: Type of effort. Examples: coupon, contest, special promo.

Digit 5-6: Specific identifiers for the effort.

If you follow these instructions, you will create for yourself  a vehicle for measuring results and the opportunity to approach your social media marketing as the fascinating science it can be. What’s stopping you?

One thing I have learned in managing Facebook business pages is that you can’t judge what’s really going on from the surface. The real story lies within your Insights. If you are not using these Facebook metrics, you are not taking your marketing efforts seriously.

Unfortunately, getting a clear understanding of what efforts are producing what results is not something you can do in a snap. It takes time to put all the pieces together, but that is the reality in effectively measuring any marketing campaign. If you don’t spend the time to understand what’s working, you miss the opportunity to get as much as possible from your Facebook investment.

What you need to piece together your results:

1. Facebook Insights
2. History of messages
3. Knowledge of what other efforts were influencing traffic to your page

What you should look for depends on what your Facebook goals are. If your business sells products or services directly to consumers, then page views are an important metric as you should be including product or service offers in your messaging strategy. The more times each fan visits your page, the more times they are exposed to your offers.

Certainly comments and likes are important as they influence Facebook’s perception of your page’s importance to a fan, and ultimately your place in their news feed. But don’t assume that no likes or comments means that nobody is visiting your page. Studying your Insights will show you otherwise.

If you would like some help with learning how to measure your own Facebook efforts, we offer training and ongoing page management. Please contact me for more information.

Over the past few days, Facebook has unleashed an overhaul of their news feed that I believe has implications for marketers that go deeper than the surface. With hundreds of thousands of Facebook users revolting, only time will tell how long this particular feature will remain in its current design. In any event, one trend does seem clear. Like the sidebar Highlights that proceeded this particular redesign, Facebook seems to be in favor of delivering content that is based on a user’s prior engagement history.

What has changed?

Prior to this redesign, users would log on and see their home page streaming the most recent updates from all their friends and all the pages they are fans of in reverse chronological order. Now Facebook has changed this landing page to include only the stories they believe the user will be most interested in based on an algorithm that looks at the user’s prior engagement history.

A number of my Facebook friends today were passing on tips on how to configure their settings to see all their updates on their home page proves that there are users who dislike the filtering enough to learn how to disable it. Yet these types of users are not the majority, so any business using Facebook as a channel for delivering marketing messages to customers must understand the implications of the new feed.

Marketing implications of the new feed

The bottom line is that Facebook’s algorithm is determining what level of importance your message is  to your fan. Facebook decides whether your message should be included in the landing page News Feed, or whether your fan will need to click on the Live Feed option to find your message with all the others from their friends and pages which didn’t make the cut of importance.

In order for your Facebook messages to be effective, they first need to be seen. You can increase the chances of your messages getting seen by increasing your chances of getting them picked by the Facebook algorithm as important or relevant stories.

Clues to what Facebook deems important or relevant

I will not pretend to be an expert on Facebook algorithms, but observations I have made from studying the updates selected for my own News Feed give me some insight about how updates get chosen.

Criteria I have observed:

• Updates from people I have sent direct messages to recently
• Updates from people I have commented on the most
• Exact keyword match with another status update I commented on

How to use this information

Once you understand a bit about what Facebook looks at, you can then begin to incorporate this knowledge into your messaging strategy.

Do you have more observations to add from your experience? I’d love to learn and pass them along here.

Those of us who have been marketing directly to consumers since the 1980’s or before have experienced the evolution of channels from mailbox to internet and email. My work now involves encouraging clients to begin to look at Facebook as another prime environment for managing communications with customers and prospects.

While thousands of companies have hopped on board Facebook from pure instinct that they need to be there, few really understand Facebook well enough to be able to design a contact strategy that is effective.

What follows is a primer meant to help you to relate the old ways to the new.

Key #1: Think of Facebook as a public online environment for building your “house” lists.  In days past, we’ve referred to this process as acquiring names and addresses. We can thank Facebook for adding a human element by introducing the term “fan”.

Your fans will include:

• Current or past customers
• People who are becoming familiar with your company

Key #2: Think of Facebook as a public online environment for broadcasting messages to your fans and visitors to your page who are not fans.

These messages are:

• Broadcast on your page wall
• Streamed into your fans’ news feed

Key #3: Think of Facebook as a private online environment for sending messages to your fans.

• Messages are delivered to your fans’ inbox as status updates
• Updates can be sent to all fans
• Updates can be targeted

Questions? I’m happy to answer them.

I think we all pretty much agree that social media as a marketing channel is in its infancy. Most businesses are like babies taking their first steps—excited, unsure and perhaps with a bit of fear. Having grown up in the direct marketing industry, I honor the brilliance of those who are developing the tools that are shaping social media today. Yet having participated in a marketing channel that has evolved into a science, I see some steps we need to take to advance social media to its next stage of development.

1. Approach social media as you would a small child with much potential. Invest in its care and feeding and don’t expect it to support itself until it has a chance to grow up.
2. Shift the focus from the concept of influence to the idea of propensity. Look towards building connections with people who have proven to take the action you want rather than rely on their friends to influence them.
3. Invest in developing methods to identify and reach out to your target customers. Don’t allow your social networks to evolve on their own. Manage your networks from the perspective of building the most valuable list you can. Don’t skimp on the time to do some digging as that is where you will discover your gold.