Wouldn’t it be nice to have a framework for measuring the impact of your social media efforts?

That’s where Susan Etlinger’s new research for the Altimeter Group comes into play. Susan did qualitative research with 60 social media marketers and vendors to understand how businesses currently measure their social media performance.

Her goal: to develop a framework for tying social media performance to business goals.

NOTE: Because Susan’s original research targeted enterprise-level companies, I interviewed her to add some small business insights. The following comments combine results of the research and that interview.

Start with your strategic goals

Business owners who see great social media success tie their technology choices to their strategic goals. The following graphic shows the importance of a thoughtful process when designing your social media plan.

Make sure to start with your business goals when choosing your tools and measures.

Etlinger advises all businesses follow this process, but particularly small businesses that have limited resources and less tolerance for missteps.

Spend ample time thinking through your vision of success so you can select the right metrics. This means getting specific about your business objectives and strategies before thinking through social objectives. Then you can organize your staff (or your personal time if you’re a solopreneur) around those metrics. Only then are you ready to select the best technologies (including which social platforms and measurement tools to use).

Once you’ve established your goals, then you’re ready to consider Altimeter’s Social Media Measurement Compass. The points of this compass identify six major business goals that social media can help influence.

Your challenge: determine your goal and then think deeply about how you will measure whether you’re achieving that goal.

These six categories will help you think through the business objectives of your measurements.

The Six Points of the Compass

#1: Brand Health

Do you know how people are talking about your service, your products or customer experience? Big brands spend lots of money managing their brand image, but small businesses also need to be aware of customers’ perceptions.

How are people talking about your service, products and selections?

Etlinger noted that people have no problem complaining directly to big brands, but might feel more reserved about criticizing a small business owner to his or her face.

Social media monitoring can help you hear what people are telling their friends, but might not be willing to tell you directly.

Beware that you can never hear the whole social media conversation about your brand. There are at least two reasons: 1) Twitter is capturing such large volumes that you can only hear about 5% of the conversation; 2) Privacy settings on Facebook prohibit non-friends from hearing many conversations.

These two factors make it critical to find ways to validate what people are saying. Small business owners may find it challenging to hear critiques, but put on your tough skin and ask some customers (in person and online).

To unveil how social media listening can help you understand your brand health, Etlinger’s research discovered the following themes (in the graphic below) as critical for your social media listening.

Notice the insights to be gained and how to measure your listening results to find these indicators of health. (I will not reproduce each matrix for the following measures, but you can see them in her article here.)

Allow these questions and thoughts to force you deeper into your measurement practices.

#2: Marketing Optimization

Social media listening can help you fine-tune your marketing efforts to better find your target audience. For many businesses, Google Analytics might be the best tool.

Your goal is to determine what terms people are searching and from what sites they are coming to your site. Some of the things to optimize are campaigns, content, channels, timing and influencers.

It’s important to realize that people share differently on different social channels. While not strictly a social media platform, Yelp provides a good example. People wanting to position themselves as food critics are likely to be far more critical on Yelp than they might be on Twitter or Facebook.

#3: Revenue Generation

This measure may be less relevant if you don’t have an online store; however, all businesses want to know if social media is driving sales.

Generally, social media shouldn’t be expected to directly lead to increased sales. Instead, it can generate leads and conversions. If you think about revenue as a relationship and not just a transaction, as suggested by Richard Binhammer of Dell, then you’ll see that social media can have a tremendous influence on the long-term relationship.

Some important things to understand are the impact of social media on: 1) purchase behavior, 2) search results and 3) customer loyalty.

If you have a physical store, make sure you have tracking systems in place for each channel.

You might try campaigns on Facebook, Twitter and Groupon and see what drives repeat business the best. Groupon is likely to attract deal-seekers who might become new customers, whereas your fans on Facebook and Twitter might find themselves more deeply connected after experiencing one of your “Facebook only” deals.

Test the hypothesis and run your own numbers. Results will vary widely based on your business type and fan base.

#4: Operational Savings

Social media can provide opportunities for hard and soft savings to your business. As customers become brand advocates, your brand reach will extend without significant expenses.

Additionally, social platforms can become far less expensive places for handling customer service. That depends on whether you have someone who can be dedicated to listening to online conversations in real time.

One smart practice is to forge relationships with fans who have strong social media influence. These people can become your advocates and even help with customer service. If they’ve already shown a willingness to speak on your behalf, find ways to feed them information.

#5: Customer Experience

Etlinger’s research discovered a direct correlation between social media and customer experience that translated into improved brand health, increased revenue and cost savings.

An example not cited in the report comes from Kraft Foods. The social media listening team discovered a trend on words like “cut,” “blood” and “salad dressing.” Those aren’t words you want associated with food, so the team dug deeper to discover that customers were cutting themselves when opening a newly designed salad dressing bottle.

The problem was easily solved, but wouldn’t have been discovered without social media. The injuries weren’t serious enough to require emergency room treatment. It was merely an inconvenience, so customers didn’t call the 1-800 number. Instead they told their friends on social media and forgot about it. Because you don’t usually buy salad dressing very often, this problem could’ve gone undetected for months.

#6: Innovation

As highlighted by Etlinger, Starbucks and Proctor & Gamble have found ways to crowdsource ideas through their innovative sites MyStarbucksIdeas.com and pgconnect.com. Not everyone can resource their own social media innovation site, but all businesses can find ways to listen to their customers for insights into product and service improvements.

For example, Twitter can give you insights into what people want. Follow statements such as, “I like,” “I wish” or “I hate.” If you heard, “I wish Charlie’s hadn’t discontinued the chicken cordon bleu,” you would have some great intelligence.

Alternatively, you could even start a conversation on Facebook asking your customers for ideas on new products, services or promotions. Maybe you could even host an “Idea Wednesday” where you spend an hour on your Facebook page looking for creative ideas.

Finding the Right Tools

There are many measurement tools available, and quite a few are free or very inexpensive. In addition to Google Analytics, here are some worth checking out:

Simply Measured has created two tools that work well together.

• Export.ly helps you analyze your Facebook fan page, Twitter audience and more through downloading customizable Excel spreadsheets.

With Export.ly, you can export data from Twitter, Facebook and email into an Excel spreadsheet or CSV file.

• RowFeeder is an inexpensive way to monitor what people are saying about your brand.

With RowFeeder, you can track your brand name; Twitter handle; the hashtag for a specific campaign, event or promotion; or general topics of interest.

If you want to figure out how often your tweets are being shared and by whom, check out TweetReach.

TweetReach analyzes the tweets that match your search.

Edelman has developed two tools called TweetLevel and BlogLevel that measure the level of influence, popularity, engagement and trust on your Twitter account and blog. These can be good indicators of the health of your social media efforts. Edelman also provides helpful tips on how to improve in each of these areas.

You can use TweetLevel to find "important" people within a specific context and start conversations with them.

BlogLevel is a purpose-built tool for PR and marketing to help ensure brands use blogs effectively.

To Learn More

Susan Etlinger has shared more detailed information about the report in the following webinar created for CoreMetrics.

Key takeaways:

1. Tie your measurement program to key business objectives.
2. Understand the key terms to follow for your business.
3. Find tools that will give you the results you seek without breaking your budget.
4. Understand that revenue is not a transaction, but a relationship. Treat your customers like people and understand how your online actions are affecting those relationships.
5. Find ways to get your customers involved through customer service, brand advocacy and idea generation.

What are your thoughts? How do you measure your social media efforts? How do these ideas help you align your business goals with your social measures? Leave your comments and questions in the box below.

David Armano recently published his social media predictions for 2010 on the Harvard Business Blog.  Here’s a detailed analysis on whether his predictions will likely come true.

Trend #1: Social Media Networks Become Exclusive

Armano predicts we’ll begin to see more exclusivity of networks as users focus more on specific niche content.  Indeed, research supports the prediction that people will be willing to pay for access to specialty networking groups.  Payment models by their very nature will exclude many spammers and create higher-quality networks.

“The bottom line is that users are willing to pay for social network content as long as sites cater to specific market niches as opposed to broader, mainstream audiences,” according to eMarketer.

Trend #2: Corporations Scale Social Media Efforts

Armano predicts corporations will begin to incorporate social media initiatives on a larger scale, moving beyond their one-off marketing experiments and general communication activity.

Research also supports this prediction.  For example, 94% of companies sponsoring online communities plan to increase their social networking support as well as engage with other social media tools, according to the 2009 Tribalization of Business Study by Deloitte.

Trend #3: Social Media for Business Becomes… Fun

Armano predicts businesses will focus more on adding entertainment to their social media efforts to incentivize user activity.

There’s plenty of data to support this trend:

Games rank #1 in top-performing mobile applications, followed by social networking apps, according to a recent report by Distimo. Games and networking are often closely related in many social media environments (I see this often on Facebook fan pages).

Here’s a great example of a mainstream company taking advantage of this emerging trend:  Volkswagen recently went 100% mobile for their GTI launch and created a virtual game via the Apple App Store.  It includes a chance to compete to win one of six limited-edition 2010 GTIs.  This is a great example of social media “game” marketing—and relates to trend #5.

Word of Facebook caution! Companies that plan on running contests on Facebook need to proceed with caution. Facebook just announced that brands, advertisers, and marketers that want to run contests or sweepstakes on its platform have to go through an approval process first. And it could get pricey.  For more information, check out this post by Mari Smith.

Trend #4: Social Media Policies Become Standard for Businesses

Armano predicts in the coming months, your company will release the “rules of engagement” for social media activity. These will be social media guidelines.

Here’s some data to support this trend:

• 40% of companies actively block employee access to social media for any purpose and only 26% of companies actually encourage social media use to further business objectives, according to a report by Russell Herder.
• 54% of chief information officers (CIOs) do not allow employees to visit social networking sites for any reason while they’re at work, according to a similar study by Robert Half Technology.
• 19% of businesses permit social media use for business purposes only and 16% permit social media activity for limited personal use, according to the same study by Robert Half Technology.

Dave Willmer, executive director of Robert Half Technology, points out, “Professionals should let common sense prevail when using Facebook and similar sites—even outside of business hours.  Regrettable posts can be a career liability.”<

Trend #5: Mobile Becomes a Social Media Lifeline

According to Armano, with the banning of social media activity increasing in the workplace and smartphone sales on the rise, the social networking addiction will be carried over to mobile devices.

Here’s some research to support this trend:

• AT&T’s mobile data traffic increased 4,932% over the last three years and over 1 billion “heavy mobile data users” are predicted by 2013, according to a presentation given by Morgan Stanley’s Economy Internet Trends.
• 46% of users younger than 35 prefer to engage in all things social media via a mobile device,according to a Gadgetology study.
• 20% of all bloggers report updating their blog from a mobile device, according to Technorati’s recent State of the Blogosphere report.

Trend #6:  Social Networks Reduce Users’ Reliance on Email

Armano predicts sharing of content will be sent via social networking sites instead of via traditional email.

Here’s data to support this trend:

• 32% of Gen Y consumers share promotional offers with members inside a social network, according to a report titled Participatory Network Marketing Methodology.
• 34% of marketers feel integrating social media and email marketing is one of the most important email marketing initiatives, according to a study by Universal McCann.
• 81.5% of social network users (those who use the Internet at least every other day) say messaging friends is the top activity when visiting social media sites, also reported by Universal McCann.

Here I’ve highlighted the studies and articles that support Armano’s conclusions.  The research seems to affirm his predictions.

Do you agree with these predictions? Are there any you predict won’t surface as trends in 2010? What other trends would you add to the mix?  Please leave your comments below.

However, just because anyone can set up a blog, doesn’t mean everyone should, and many professionals and businesses start blogging without giving any thought to why, how and who will be doing the blogging.

Over 50 percent of blogs are abandoned within the first 90 days. While this isn’t really important if you’re writing a personal diary, political or celebrity blog, it is very important if you start a blog for your business and don’t keep posting on it consistently and with purpose.

When a prospect lands on a blog that hasn’t been updated in months, it’s akin to walking into a vacant store with busted windows and dust blowing in. It’s just not pretty; and it doesn’t look good for you, your business reputation and your branding.

Don’t let that happen to you. Start right, start smart and follow a few suggested guidelines. First, let’s review some basics:

What Is a Business Blog?

Because a blog is an inexpensive, fast way to build an online presence, it is an ideal way for business entrepreneurs, coaches, consultants, speakers, authors and other professionals to establish their credibility and expertise.  Since your readers can post comments, you create a conversation with your audience and build rapport and trust as a result.

The very nature of a blog is perfect for the busy professional.  They are quick and easy to update.  You are creating fresh content frequently (two to three times a week is recommended minimum) that is useful to your prospects and customers and loved by search engines.  In contrast to “traditional” static website, a blog is a dynamic site that encourages your visitors to interact with you through commenting so they can get to know you better.

When you create a conversation with your audience (visitors, readers, prospects), you are establishing your credibility.  You build your network and increase the visibility of your products and services in a casual way.

A blog is an essential tool in the professional’s marketing toolbox.  Combined with a website, an ezine, database management and ecommerce system, you will have everything you need to develop and run your business globally and online.

Copyblogger.com makes it easy to find articles about the core message and there are several ways to generate leads and build a list.

Do your research. Alltop.com compiles the best blogs on hundreds of topics so you can check out your competition.

10 Steps for Starting Your Blog

Before you get to the nitty-gritty of setting up your blog, there is some pre-work to do. This will ensure you start right and put your best foot forward

1. Before you do anything else, examine the reasons why you want to publish a blog. What is the purpose for the blog? How does the blog’s purpose relate to your business purpose?

2. What are the business objectives or outcomes you want from your business blog? Some people use a blog as a lead generator to build their database. Some are looking to build a visibility platform, while others use the blog to develop content for other purposes like books, articles and programs. What do you want to get out of your blog?

3. Who is your ideal reader? Who are you writing to/for? For most businesses I’ve worked with, the ideal reader is similar to their ideal client. It’s important to know your audience so you can meet their needs and address their concerns, challenges and what they’re looking for to improve their lives.

4. How do you want your readers to feel when they read your blog? This may seem like a weird question, yet it will help you tap into the emotions of your audience. Do you want your reader to be inspired, motivated, and moved to action? Again, tapping into this will help you focus your content on serving your reader.

5. What do you want your readers to DO when they read your blog? This relates to the goals you set for your blog. If your blog is a lead generator, then you must have very clear steps for guiding your reader to subscribe to get blog updates and/or get your lead generating content.

6. How much time do you have to devote to your blog each week? This is getting to the heart of blogging. If you can’t commit to writing a lot of valuable content, then you’re doing yourself and your readers a disservice. Be honest. The most effective and successful blogs are those with fresh, new content posted at least two to three times per week. Is that reasonable for you to manage? Will you have a team of bloggers? Remember, there are many, many ways to create content. It doesn’t have to be all you all the time.

7. What’s your blog’s core message? This relates to the topic of your blog and the niche you are focused on. What do you want your readers to learn? Why should anyone read your blog, and more importantly why should they subscribe to and follow your blog? This is another key piece to get in place before you start your blog. Brian Clark, publisher of Copyblogger.com, recommends creating “cornerstone content.” This is a series of posts that articulates your core message and provides new readers with an introduction and overview of what they can expect to learn from you.

8. Create an editorial calendar. It’s no secret that content rules on a blog, so it’s helpful to have a content plan going into the game. A key element of a good blog is having a list of 7-10 keyword-rich categories. Once you determine the categories (or subtopics) of your blog, you can plan your content calendar. If you plan on posting three times per week, then plot out post ideas for each of your categories. Make a list of 5 topics for each category. Then, fill in your calendar. Five topics times ten categories and you’ve got 50 blog posts in the pipeline.

9. Do your homework. Critical to your blog’s success is knowing your competition. Who is already blogging in your niche? What are they writing about? If blogs in your niche are scarce, this may be a great opportunity to dominate the search engines with your own content. Finding great blogs will take a bit of time and research. Start at Technorati.com and search for blogs using your keywords. Next use Alltop.com and Blogs.com to find the best of the best.

10. Build your blog. Now that the research is done, you know your message and have content ready to go, it’s time to get down to business and build the blog. This is where the fun part starts and cannot be easily covered in a bullet point. Two things to think about: 1) Are you a do-it-yourselfer or will someone build the blog for you? and 2) Are you a techie or not? There are many blogging platforms each with pros and cons. If you’re a techie, you may prefer WordPress.org. If you’re not comfortable with tech stuff, then TypePad may be a better option for you.

As you can see, there’s more to business blogging than initially meets the eye. The more preparation and thought you put into your blog BEFORE you start, the more successful it will be. Once the prep work is done and the blog is built, you’ll have a powerful marketing tool for creating a highly visible web presence and attracting the right people to your business.

What else would you add to this list to prep your blog for success? Share your best blogging tips in the comments below.