Vicky's blog

My thoughts on Occam’s Razor by Avinash Kaushik

You’ve implemented all the social media tools and gadgets that you think will serve your chosen purpose (see Building Online Communities is about Purpose, Purpose, Purpose), and people are starting to respond. Great! Or is it? What is great anyways?

How can you measure if your strategies have been successful?

According to Avinash Kaushik in his blog Occam’s Razor, there are 4 measurements to determine online marketing success:

1. Conversation Rate = # of Audience Comments (or Replies) Per Post

This gives you insights into who your listeners and participants are, what your brand attributes are, and what value you can offer your customers.

2. Amplification Rate = how many times your message is passed on

e.g. # retweets / tweet, # facebook shares / post, # share clicks / blog post

This will help you determine what’s most important to your customers, what gets their attention and what they value most.

3. Applause Rate = # favorite clicks on twitter, # likes on facebook or blogs

Knowing what your audience likes helps you strategize what to give them more of, how to connect with them in a more meaningful and valuable way.

4. Economic Value = sum of short and long term revenue and cost savings; in other words, the bottom-line

The reason for using social media is to drive economic value, so measuring it is key.

Taking it a step further…

One thing that Kaushik doesn’t discuss is that all of these measures are relative to the size of your target market. If your target market is a small, specific group of people, then a lower conversation rate may actually be relatively high! Know the size of your target market and take this into account when measuring success.

Also, trending over time is key and comparing with your competition is key. If you have the resources (time, people, money) to compare your stats to those of your competitors, you will gain an ever deeper insight into what consumers value and how you can better serve them. Trending your own stats, as well as those of your competitor, over time will allow you to see what works and what doesn’t, how consumers respond (or don’t!). All of this is valuable in connecting with and responding to what your customers need.