There's an old saying, "What gets measured, gets done." That's a simple way of pointing to the importance of accountability in our work and efforts. Lately, I have been pondering social media and how to measure it. Facebook posts and Twitter tweets are out front in real estate marketing right now. I support it, encourage it, and practice it.
Go to a seminar on social media, and ask this question: "How do we know when we've been successful?" When I have asked that question, I haven't been satisfied with the answers. As a leader and a coach, I place a premium on measurable results. In our industry, closed transaction count is a matrix that quickly rises to the top. Is there a magic ratio of Facebook posts to closed sides? Tweets per pendings? I haven't found it yet, but maybe we can discover it. I am confident the quality of the posts also impacts the result.
Not all important results are numerically measurable, but I did find a great article in the Harvard Business Review that addresses measuring the impact of social media. From that article, here are two questions to gauge your work when writing your posts:
- What is the value of this post to the reader?
- What action do I want them to take?
Brian Sollis, the author, goes on to redefine the old acronym: K.I.S.S. You probably know that stands for "keep it simple, stupid." He brings a fresh spin:
Keep it significant and shareable.
Significance requires that we are thinking and engaged. Sometime I sit down to Facebook and realize, "I've got nothin'!" No ideas, no responses, no interest. I find that significance develops when I am taking in truly valuable information on a steady basis, kind of like good eating habits. I need the vegetables of reading: short stories from the New Yorker, business books by thoughtful leaders, blog posts from online gurus, great fiction to explore human relationships, poetry to stir my heart, and spiritual reading to strengthen my soul. Not everyone's a reader, but we all need the nutrients that come from theses sources written, video, or audio. When I have fed my mind well, then I have something significant to say.
"Shareable" strikes me as a trendy, but important, term. We are all after the viral impact. How can I develop content that motivates others to pass it along to their networks? Last week, I hit a milestone. I was excited to log in to my Twitter account and find that I had been re-tweeted; by someone I didn't even know! On a personal level, I thought, "I'm important!" On an objective level, I hit the level of relevance: My message on Twitter made an impact deep enough that the reader thought it important to share with his network.
Engaging in social media with consistency is the first step to successful online marketing. But there's more. Consider what you want to accomplish, how you can make it shareable, and what action you desire for the readers to take. While we continue to explore for more precise measures, I recommend that you measure the following:
- Frequency of Posts: My current measure are two posts every business day
- Relevance: After writing, I ask, "Who wants to know this?" Does this reflect my target audience or a sub group of that audience?
- Reaction: did I get a response, comment, share, like, or re-tweet?
There's a lot more to learn,and I plan to dig in deeper with Solis' book, Engage!.
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