Why would anyone travel more than 3 thousand miles — from Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, to Seattle, Washington (on the west coast of the USA) — to attend a short conference on digital analytics? SimplyMeasured is the premier social analytics platform. SimplyMeasured is basically the equivalent of what Google Analytics is to websites analytics, but for Social Media. SimplyMeasured hosts the annual LIFT Conference.
I first learned of SimplyMeasured back in 2011. Back then, I found a web service called Tweetstats. Tweetstats is a Twitter analytics tool. It was the first analytics tool of its kind. And it existed before Twitter created its own public analytics tool. Tweetstats was developed by one of SimplyMeasured’s co-founders, Damon Cortesi. Since then I’ve been catching up as a user, connoisseur, aficionado, partner, and patron.
SimplyMeasured is well known for providing state-of-the-art guides, e-books, and Social Media resources for digital marketers. “Staying current,” especially if you work in Social Media, is particularly important. You should be reading SimplyMeasured’s literature. I highly recommend their blog. By the way, “staying current” is actually how I got this wonderful opportunity to attend their first annual #LIFTConference, held on Seattle’s beautiful waterfront.
After listening to all of their tips and lessons learned, here are five of my top takeaways. These resonated with me and are applicable to anyone that works with Social Media at agencies that are similar to the firm that I work at: Infinity Media. If you do, I think you’ll find these useful too.
1.“Measure social based on where your efforts fit in the customer lifecycle.” Nate Elliott, from Forrester Research, shared this during his keynote presentation. He added, “Try to find a ‘real life’ equivalent, on the customer lifecycle, on everything you measure. Even better, drive your efforts towards always getting an ‘offline value’ out of your social activity. Don’t just collect data, make it actionable.”
2. Uri Bar-Joseph formula to success: Identify Marketing Objectives + Organize Social Metrics + Set realistic goals.
3. Stay away from vanity metrics to define your strategy success, or as Shanda Maloney, UFC’s Social Media Director, puts it: “Increasing followers doesn’t always mean increased engagement.”
4. Kevin Shively, Head of Content Marketing for SimplyMeasured: “Social Media Marketing TODAY is about discipline.” Do what you can do. This reminds of a question I usually am asked: Do I have to be on every social media channel? (Ask my partner John R. Gagain Jr. @jgagain at Infinity Media this question. He’s always talking about this…)
5. Understand your benchmark by platform-by-platform. Try doing things that work distinctly for each platform you manage. Facebook is not Twitter. Google+ is not SnapChat. YouTube is not Soundcloud. And on and on.
If you want to find more, I encourage you to dig deeper. Click on the hashtag #LIFTSocial on Twitter or other Social Media channels. The conference generated tons of content to follow-up on. There’s was (and is) a lot of good insight floating around out there.