Perhaps Carl Folta, executive vice president of corporate communications at Viacom, best sums up the essence of Twitter:
“It’s all headlines,” he says. “It’s like a haiku.”
Well, sort of. Twitter may not confine verbosity by syllables, but it does set limitations in the form of characters—140, to be exact. And it’s amazing how greatly such tiny statements can affect companies’ brands and reputations, for better or for worse.
As recent PR News coverage has shown, a number of communications teams are leveraging this micro-platform to hugely positive effects (see “Go Forth & Tweet: Best-in-Class Twitter Strategies for PR Execs,” PRN 05-18-09). But how do they attach a numeric value to these effects to measure how much (if at all) their Twitter efforts are increasing engagement, building potentially profitable relationships or boosting sales?
The answer turns out to be much simpler than the econometric models and algorithms that come along with measuring, say, reputation, as Twitter comes with its fair share of built-in tracking devices—not to mention the new (and usually free) applications that pop up daily.
To begin wading through the tweet-o-sphere and measuring the direct impact of your efforts, consider the following tools and best practices:
â–¶ Set goals up front. They may sound like broken records doing it, but communications leaders recommend establishing objectives first and foremost, regardless of the context. The same is true for Twitter measurement, as trying to determine success retroactively will provide muddled results at best.
Once you’ve decided on your goals, use them to shape your content stream. For example, if your goal is to build relationships, the types of tweets you post will be very different than if you are looking to drive traffic to your corporate site, or to increase sales.
â–¶ Track click-throughs. One effective way to measure engagement is to track the number of followers who click on the URLs that you tweet (in other words, who actually engage with, instead of stare at, your content). Luckily, there are a number of URL-shortening applications that do this for you automatically, including:
• Bit.ly
• Cli.gs
• DwarfURL
• Zi.ma
• SnipURL
â–¶ Use keyword strategies. As is the case with search engine optimization, keywords are crucial to increasing your visibility on Twitter. After all, Twitter is a mini-search engine unto itself, with a search function that allows users to search for people to follow based on keywords (plus, as the next tip demonstrates, the number of followers you have can also factor into measurement efforts).
There are easy ways to incorporate keywords directly into the shortened links that you tweet, thanks to URL-shortening services with built-in keyword-choice applications, including:
• Doiop
• ReadThisUrl
• urlTea
â–¶ Measure followers vs. followees. “The ratio of people who follow you to the number of people you follow is a key metric of success,” says Esther Steinfeld, PR director of Blinds.com, noting that the more people following you, the more opportunities for engagement.
But to have a large following, you must first provide interesting and useful content on a consistent basis. Then, when people do follow you, don’t feel obligated to follow them back; it’s best to only follow users who can offer you valuable advice or information.
â–¶ Track re-tweets. Re-tweets (RTs) are tweets rebroadcast by another user, signifying a high level of interest and increased visibility. The number of RTs you get will give you a good impression of what types of posts deliver the biggest bang for your proverbial buck. Services like RetweetRank.com make it oh-so-easy to find out when you stand in the re-tweet-o-sphere.
â–¶ Quantify the number of replies from users. When someone directly responds to one of your tweets, you will see an @yourname. This helps judge the level of interaction you have with your followers and, once again, it’s easy to quantify—just look to services like Twitter.com/#replies or TweetDeck.
Clearly, there is no shortage of free services to measure just about any activity taking place on Twitter, but actually making sense of the metrics they provide and shaping strategies accordingly is up to you. At this point, though, it’s safe to say that the cost of not experimenting with this micro-blog is … well, anything but micro. PRN
CONTACTS:
Esther Steinfeld, [email protected]; Carl Folta, [email protected]