Three Goals for Increasing Social Measurement in 2012

1. It’s not the fans, it’s what you do with them. You need to understand who your brand followers are and how influential they can be on your behalf. Engage, excite, and react to their mentions; they are your biggest advocates and often go untouched. Very few marketers track the number of people who contribute to a brand’s social community.
2. Go beyond brand metrics. The more you can draw in more understanding in how social media impacts actual business, the better. If you sell a product, work with your web analytics or sales data to correlate where the behavior came from; often social media is a big influence there. Leaving this stone unturned can be detrimental.
3. Integrate social analytics and marketing analytics. Understand how social media can make other media spending more efficient, and how online buzz relates to overall marketing performance.