How should you plan and track your social media efforts? How do you know if you're doing well or not? I propose 12 metrics over 74 slides. Delivered in, yes, 12 minutes. Originally presented at #MSMW2013 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Feb 27, 2013

1. Measuring RoI & effectiveness
in social media marketing
@maheshmurthy

2. Return On Investment
can be said to come from
Relevance, Originality, Impact
But that’s not precisely measurable.
Need better metrics.
@maheshmurthy

3. 12 minutes.
12 metrics to live by.
@maheshmurthy

4. 1
HOW LOW IS YOUR AD-SPEND-TO-REVENUE
RATIO? TO BECOME BIG, SPEND LESS.
@maheshmurthy

5. Interbrand’s ‘Top 100 brands 2012’
@maheshmurthy

6. @maheshmurthy

7. @maheshmurthy

8. Interbrand’s ‚Top 100 brands 2012‛
1/3rd seem to have been built without
too much spend on media buying.
@maheshmurthy

9. This list doesn’t even include Red Bull,
Twitter, Ferrari, Facebook. The zero-ad-
budget champions.
It’s back to the age of extreme word-of
mouth
@maheshmurthy

10. Increasingly, in more sectors, the winner
has the best word of mouth.
And correspondingly, the lowest ad spend.
@maheshmurthy

11. 2
HOW FAST CAN YOU DIE?
WINNER BRANDS HAVE TO THINK ANTI-FRAGILE.
@maheshmurthy

12. $300m brand, built over 15 years.
@maheshmurthy

13. $300m brand, built over 15 years.
Destroyed in 15 hours.
@maheshmurthy

14. $50b brand, built over 150 years.
Gone in a weekend.
@maheshmurthy

15. Let’s say a can of Axe deodorant was found
with a cockroach in it.
And a can of Gillette deodorant too was
found with a cockroach in it.
I believe Gillette would be harder affected because
it’s the one making higher claims of greatness.
‚The holier-than-thou, the harder-thy-fall.‛
@maheshmurthy

16. Let’s say there was a similar service issue
(stewardess makes out with passenger on
flight) on Singapore Airlines and on Virgin.
I believe Singapore Airlines would be much harder
hit.
‚The holier-than-thou, the harder-thy-fall.‛
@maheshmurthy

17. Your longevity is increased if you don’t
claim perfection.
The more risk you embrace in your brand
personality, the more resilience to black
swans you’ll gain.
@maheshmurthy

18. 3
WHAT IS YOUR CONTENT-COST-TO-COVERAGE
RATIO?
WINNER BRANDS WILL CUT OUT THE MIDDLEMEN
BETWEEN THEM AND CONSUMERS.
@maheshmurthy

19. Old way:
Brand  Research firm  Strategy firm 
Creative agency  Media agency  Media house
 Media property  Editorial / Entertainment 
Inserted advertising  Consumer
Loss of fidelity, efficiency at each level
New way:
Brand  Editorial / Entertainment  Consumer
Minimal loss of fidelity. Max efficiency.
@maheshmurthy

20. @maheshmurthy

21. Red Bull had 5x the global search volume of Coca Cola
during the stunt. And settled down at a level higher than
Pepsi.
@maheshmurthy

22. The brand is the entertainment.
Media may even pay to cover the brand.
No ad film was produced.
No media buy was executed.
$500m+ worth of publicity
on ~$15m worth of investment.
30x
@maheshmurthy

23. 4
HOW SOON WILL YOUR SOCIAL NETWORK DIE?
WINNER BRANDS WILL BUILD NETWORK-NEUTRAL
PRESENCE.
@maheshmurthy

24. Social networks typically have a lifecycle
@maheshmurthy

25. @maheshmurthy

26. When & how brands should participate
Watch Try Wait Exploit & Maintain & Consolidate Prepare to
grow exit &
migrate
@maheshmurthy

27. Facebook seems to have begun its decline
in the US already.
It will also die one day.
What happens to your investment and fans
there?
They’re not portable.
@maheshmurthy

28. Instead of building content on a social
network, build it on your site –
Use ‚f-connect‛ and other such buttons –
and embed it on networks from your site
You should own your fans. Not Facebook.
Be network-neutral.
@maheshmurthy

29. 5
WHAT IS YOUR SHARE OF TRAFFIC FROM SOCIAL?
OVER 50%?
@maheshmurthy

30. @maheshmurthy

31. India’s #3 sports site
5m pageviews a month generated socially
from 3.5m Facebook fans.
At zero media cost
@maheshmurthy

32. 6
WHAT IS YOUR SHARE OF SALES FROM SOCIAL?
OVER 50%?
@maheshmurthy

33. @maheshmurthy

34. $1m annual sales.
Generated almost exclusively from
Facebook.
At zero media cost.
@maheshmurthy

35. 7
HOW SOON BEFORE FACEBOOK BECOMES YAHOO
WITH SMALLER ADS?
AND TAKES ITS VIRAL VISIBILITY TO ZERO?
@maheshmurthy

36. Edge rank: updates reach virtually no one, really.
@maheshmurthy

37. Typical / max organic visibility of your Facebook
update across your fan base
80%
16%
12%
2012 2013
@maheshmurthy

38. Typically, less than 1% of your fan base
actually is shown your update (unless you
pay to promote). 99% won’t get it.
At best, about 12% of your fan base will
get to see it.
@maheshmurthy

39. Facebook squelched organic ‛free‛ visibility
to boost short-term revenues to kick-up
stock price.
Every time Facebook needs revenues, it’ll
damp virality further.
When will virality go to zero – and you start
comparing Facebook with Yahoo, where
visibility is 100% fee-dependent?
@maheshmurthy

40. 8
WHAT ARE THE ONLY FACEBOOK STATS THAT
MATTER?
VIRALITY AND ENGAGEMENT
@maheshmurthy

41. Out of a boatload of Facebook analytics…
@maheshmurthy

42. Two really matter – and Facebook doesn’t
compute those. But you can:
Relative virality:
How many non-fans get to organically see updates
divided by total number of fans
i.e. how viral did it go?
Viral attraction:
How many non-fans become fans as a result of
seeing updates organically, divided by total
number of non-fans who saw the updates.
i.e. how compelling was the virality?
@maheshmurthy

43. Relative virality – the higher, the better. Aim for 2%+ daily
@maheshmurthy

44. Viral attraction – the lower, the better. Aim for <50
@maheshmurthy

45. Then measure engagement
Not as PTAT (people talking about this)
which is a useless number.
@maheshmurthy

46. Engagement Type Metric Norm
E1: Unprompted Posts / fan base 0.05% | 50
E2: Prompted Comments / fan base 0.5% | 500
E3: Passive Likes / fan base 2.5% | 2500
E4: Referral Shares / fan base 0.5% | 500
@maheshmurthy

47. And compare against sectoral peers –
also TG peer brands.
Which you can measure externally, with
no account access
@maheshmurthy

48. @maheshmurthy

49. 9
HOW DO YOU IDENTIFY AND TRACK INFLUENCERS?
WITH KLOUT, PEER INDEX AND KRED.
@maheshmurthy

50. Pinstorm tracks over 6,000 influencers in
India alone everyday, sorted by TGs & topics
http://pinstorm.com/ii
@maheshmurthy

51. @maheshmurthy

52. @maheshmurthy

53. 10
HOW QUICKLY CAN YOU PICK UP BUZZ ABOUT YOUR
BRAND AND DEAL WITH IT?
WITHIN 4 HOURS? 7 DAYS A WEEK?
@maheshmurthy

54. Per brand: 1,000 to 15,000+ social
mentions per day
80% outside office hours.
Need to work in shifts, 7 days a week.
@maheshmurthy

55. Quick sorting and data visualisation
@maheshmurthy

56. @maheshmurthy

57. @maheshmurthy

58. @maheshmurthy

59. Instant client notifications on mobile.
SLA of ~4 hours for responses at scale.
@maheshmurthy

60. @maheshmurthy

61. 11
WHAT IS THE VALUE OF YOUR SOCIAL BUZZ?
RELATIVE TO YOURSELF?
RELATIVE TO COMPETITION?
@maheshmurthy

62. Tracking competitive sentiment
@maheshmurthy

63. 100
93
90
84
80
78 78
74
72 71 71
70 69
65 65 66 65 65 65
63 63
60 61 61 60 60
Positive
50
Negative
40 39 39 40 40
37 37
35 35 34 35 35 35
30 31
28 29 29
26
22 22
20
16
10
7
0
@maheshmurthy

64. Valuing sentiment
@maheshmurthy

65. Pinstorm has an SLA for $15m in value of
non-negative publicity to be generated
through online reputation management for
one client.
Value apportioned with equivalent CPM
rate for ad spot in medium, with 1:1
editorial to ad valuation
@maheshmurthy

66. 12
WHAT ARE YOUR VIDEO VIRALITY AND COST
METRICS?
THIS IS THE NEXT BIG FRONTIER.
@maheshmurthy

67. @maheshmurthy

68. Over 2.5m views generated on one film
alone.
TV-competitive cost per view
67:33 mix of paid and organic.
@maheshmurthy

69. The 100x revolution in production.
@maheshmurthy

70. @maheshmurthy

71. @maheshmurthy

72. Cost of broadcast quality commercials
down from US$250,000 to US$2,500.
100x improvement already.
True break-even will come at US$25, when
the film can make its own cost back thru
ads on 10,000 views.
So, further 100x improvement needed
@maheshmurthy

73. 12 minutes.
12 metrics to live by.
@maheshmurthy

74. Thank you!
mahesh@pinstorm.com
@maheshmurthy
@maheshmurthy