Week 4: A Conversation with Guest Speaker Sara Dunaj by Danielle Spencer
By UCLA X469.21 Student Danielle Spencer
LIKE YOGA, GOOD SOCIAL MEDIA ANALYTICS START WITH YOUR INTENTION.
Demonstrating the value of social media marketing was a topic demystified by our Week 4 guest speaker, Sara Dunaj, who serves as director of brand engagement at High Wide & Handsome.
During her presentation, Sara broke down social media measurement essentials including objectives, KPI mapping, and benchmarking. She noted that like yoga, working with analytics is a process that begins with your intention.
Here are a few steps to set up your analytics for success:
Step #1: Determine what you are trying to measure.
Objectives describe what you intend to achieve. Once you understand your social media goals — which can range from generating awareness to driving purchases — you can further define what you will measure by selecting the right KPIs, or key performance indicators. Tracking KPIs enables you to determine if the strategies and tactics you’ve employed are actually moving the needle.
Step #2: Pick the right KPIs for your objective.
KPI mapping ensures that you are using the right data to measure success related to your objective. Each objective should map back to its own set of KPIs. For instance, if your objective is to raise product or brand awareness, the KPIs that map back to that objective could include video views, impressions, and reach, among others. Separately, if your objective is to drive purchases, you’d look at KPIs like web conversions (likely with the help of Google Analytics). Evaluating multiple KPIs for a particular objective can provide a robust view of how well your social media efforts are performing.
Beyond organic posts, paid social allows you to take analytics a step further and look at KPIs like ad recall lift. The Business Manager tool for Facebook and Instagram ads allows you to optimize KPIs based on your campaign objectives, including cost-per-impression and cost-per-click.
When organic and paid social from your owned social media accounts aren’t enough, you can also work with influencers to lend credibility and authenticity in a way that brands simply can’t achieve on their own. Influencers offer an alternative perspective for consumers to engage with content about your brand.
Step #3: Context is key!
Steps 1 and 2 get you two-thirds of the way home when it comes to measurement, but what does the data mean? You have to provide context to all those digits you’ve been collecting throughout the course of your campaign. You can do this by comparing the data gathered at different times to specific benchmarks or targets you might have set .
How do your results measure against a benchmark established from a successful campaign last year? How about against your company’s nearest competitors or the industry overall? These are all relevant questions to help determine whether your social media efforts are moving toward or away from the goals you set.
When packaging and presenting results for C-suite leaders at your organization, try to focus on how your social media efforts are impacting the bottom line—driving purchases, generating new leads and acquisitions, and/or demonstrating brand lift.
Namaste!
Analytics prove value and show the leadership within your organization that there’s a rhyme and reason to all that you do. Keep these steps in mind whenever social media reporting is on the horizon.
Special thank you to Sara Dunaj for taking the time to speak with our class!
