Week 11 - Metrics

Metrics are a very important part of social media for organizations.  They help companies measure specific things like which of their publics are being reached, how many hits their different social media platforms are receiving, and what specific types of social media seem to be the most effective.  It is crucial for organizations that desire to use social media to interact with their constituents to use metrics because they will have little to no idea who they are reaching and how effective their social media plan is.

In my case with working in sports media relations, Pacific’s athletics website has their own built-in metrics system.  This system measures which pages are being viewed the most, and that can be narrowed down to days, weeks, or months depending on what kind of information is being searched for.  The website also measures which pages people exit the website from as well as which links are the most popular (i.e.: weekly releases, game recaps, special features).  I know this has helped me define what kinds of content to post for my sports.  For example, I decided to include links to both the men’s water polo Facebook and Twitter accounts because I saw that people who visited the website often clicked on the social media links on the sidebar of the sport’s main page.  I figured they would also want to visit these sites if I provided the links within each release I wrote.

I also use HootSuite for the social media accounts for my sports, which provides metric data.  However, since I use the free version, I am unable to access the metric features, but I have looked at the different types of data they offer and it looks like it would be extremely helpful.  I may push for our department to sign up with HootSuite or TweetDeck full time in order to get more accurate metrics that would help our marketing and connecting with our fans.