Serious Social - Data is a core component to Social Media success

Welcome to the Serious Social podcast, created by the straight-talking social media experts at immediate future.In this episode, we’re talking data. Associate Director Belle Lawrence is joined by Managing Director Colin Jacobs as they discuss the data you should be collecting from social media and how to utilise it within your marketing mix.Our website: http://www.immediatefuture.co.uk Social profiles: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/IFTubes Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ImmediateFuture/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/immediate-future/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/iftweeter Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ifinstas/ Belle - So, CJ, when we go to conferences, we hear a lot about data in social and it's being heralded often as a great hope for marketing. Is that the case? CJ - Is it important and does it have an impactful role? Yes.Is it this new thing? Absolutely not, it's been around for years.Well, obviously, you don't know what you don't know, so, I don't want to sort of come across condescending, but I find it bizarre. There's a lot of agencies, too many agencies that claim to be social media agencies and they're only just opening their eyes to data, that is wholly wrong.So yes, very important, but no, it's not this new great thing. You should have been using data for years to inform your marketing mix.It's the great thing about social, isn't it? I mean, a number of us have worked in other disciplines whether that's traditional marketing out of home, TV, public relations. The beauty of social is there's a tangibility to it.You know instantly the eyeballs that have seen it versus those that haven’t.There's none of this, ‘well there's an opportunity for 200,000 people to sleepily cross the road and look at this billboard’ - there's none of that in social media, which is great.Belle - So, what can we track in social?CJ - Yeah, a really good question.There's a number of metrics and there are vanity metrics and there are sanity metrics. And I'm going to split the two, because there will be a number of people watching this that will go "Woah, a like is no sort of metric in marketing!"Well you're right, but you're also wrong. The vanity metrics, likes, engagements, video views, yes, they are a bit, "Look at us we've done some great things." But if you're not getting the vanity metrics your content's not resonating with the audience.So, you need some of the vanity to give you the "You're doing the right thing." If none of your content is getting vanity metrics you’ve got a lot a change that you need to make pronto.But once you're delivering that you then need to move on to the sanity metrics. Where you're starting to measure your share of voice the equity your brand's holding your position within the market and there are some sophisticated tools that you can do this with.Some of the viewers from traditional media will know that you can go and get Nielsen reports. And they'll show you whether you've moved on from 5% market share to 6%. But within social, there's a lot that we can get organically.... for full show notes, visit our website: http://immediatefuture.co.uk/podcasts/