(Subscription Required) This issue of The Measurement Advisor began when someone asked me an unanswerable question: “How do you measure Snapchat?” Given that the whole concept behind Snapchat was that whatever you posted would disappear in a few seconds, I had to laugh. Snapchat was never designed to be monitored and tracked the way you do a Tweet or Facebook or blog post.
But now, as consumer brands invest significant budgets into developing their own Snapchat Stories, the question has become important. What’s the business value of those Snapchat Stories? Or of posts on the other ephemeral social media, Facebook Messenger Day and Instagram Stories?
Back to the basics: Why are you doing it?
Posts on Snapchat and its ephemeral social media siblings are here for a moment and then gone. That’s part of their appeal. It’s a big part of what makes them cool. And being cool is probably why 80% of companies decide they want a presence on them.
If you’re investing in these social media to show that you’re cool, then you’ll want to determine where you are on your audience’s cool vs. clueless continuum. And in order to do that, you’re going to have to ask them what they think. No amount of opens and clicks data is going to tell you that.
Ultimately your CEO or Chief Financial Officer will ask, and your CMO or CCO will need to explain, exactly what they’re getting for that big ephemeral marketing campaign. And, if you say “We reached [fill in the unbelievably large number here] people!” then you’ll be lucky to get out of the room with your job intact.
So, the answer to how you measure your presence on those ephemeral networks is very close to what I told my first client—back in 1987—when he asked, “How can I measure PR?” There are three basic steps…
Step 1: Start with the goals.
Just as with any other form of communications, ephemeral social media measurement starts with clearly articulated goals and SMART objectives. And before you say that you were trying to “generate buzz,” remember that buzz is not something that appears on a balance sheet.
Let me suggest a few smart business objectives instead. Decide on one or two of these and, before going on to Step 2, get agreement from anyone and everyone who matters.
1. More efficiently reach your target audience
If your target audience is under 34, 70% female, and have a smart phone, this could be a valid objective. If not, you have no legitimate reason for being on Snapchat.
When your goal is greater efficiency, the next question you have to answer is “greater than what?“ Are you comparing Snapchat to Pinterest, or Snapchat to display ads? And is that a realistic benchmark for your organization?
2. Drive an increase in traffic to our e-commerce site
When your goal is to increase traffic to your website, you’ll need to add tags to your stories or posts so Google Analytics (or whatever platform you use to measure the sources of incoming traffic to your website) will know if someone goes from Snapchat or another ephemeral platform to your site.
3. Generate more leads
If the business goal of your social program is to generate leads, then whatever system you use to track incoming leads will need to have the social source added as an option. If you have an inbound call center and they ask the standard “How did you hear about us?” then make sure that Snapchat or whatever platform is one of the options.
4. Generate awareness, consideration, or preference
Most brands will admit that they are on ephemeral social media to generate an appealing image for themselves or “engagement” with their brand. But you can’t pay bills with engagement. You can generate awareness, consideration, or preference that will shorten the sales cycle or increase inquiries. But the only way you’ll know if that is happening is to ask people about their media consumption habits. Then with any luck you might find a higher correlation between increased preference among those who say they use or heard of you on Snapchat.
Step 2: So: real, compared to what?
Once you’ve got agreement on the business objectives, then you need to make sure you have a credible benchmark. Implied in any challenge to your justification of the use of a social campaign is that you are doing something either more effectively or less expensively. The question is: compared to what?
Too frequently the comparison is made with banner ads, even though the industry widely acknowledges that no sentient human ever clicks on one intentionally. A more realistic comparison would be to an earlier social campaign that was considered “successful.”
Step 3: What’s your Kick Butt Index?
Your Kick Butt Index is your answer to your boss when she charges in and says, “Damn it we’re getting our butts kicked, do something!” and/or “Congratulations you’re really kicking butt!” It is a universally agreed upon—at least within your department—definition of “doing a great job,” expressed in a few consistent, accurate numbers. (Read more about the Kick Butt Index technique here.) Here are my recommendations:
- Increase in percent of conversions or leads or new web traffic that come in from Snapchat or whatever platform you’re using;
- Increase in completion rate, i.e., the percent of all people who access your ephemeral video content who watch it through to the end; and/or
- Percent increase in screen shots, the Snapchat version of shares.
And there you have it.
∞
