We all know how hard it is to measure the success of marketing via social media. Yesterday, however, the Interactive Advertising Bureau released a highly ambitious document that may help by getting ad agencies, advertisers and content producers on the same page.
The goal of IAB’s newly developed set of terms and metrics is to codify social media categories and how they are measured — in the name of consistency. It spells out the definitions of and yardsticks for:
Social media Web sites, measured by:
- Unique visitors
- Cost per unique visitor
- Page views
- UGC specific visits
- Return visits
- Interaction rate
- Time spent
- Video installs
- Actions taken
Blogs, measured by:
- Conversation size (number of conversation-relevant sites, number of links, overall reach)
- Site relevance (density of posts)
- Author credibility (number of posts, number of links, date of first post, date of last post, post frequency)
- Content freshness and relevance
Widgets, measured by:
- Total installations of application
- Active users over time
- Unique user reach
- Audience profile (demographics)
- Growth over time
- Influence (average number of friends who have installed application)
These definitions were developed by the IAB User-Generated Content & Social Media Committee comprised of representatives from 150 media companies intrested in “stimulating growth” of UGC and social media as marketing vehicles. Given that the IAB built their reputation on standards, this is a big step in the right direction for social media.
Will this codification help you measure the impact of social media on your marketing efforts?