Making The Case: Social Media, Data (Lots of Data), and How to Get ‘Buy In’ from the Powers that Be

We live in a data-driven world. Amazon knows what we want to buy. Netflix knows what we want to watch. And Facebook knows, well, everything.

(which isn’t scary at all, right?)

Data—and the analysis of it—influences the decisions of everyone from large, multi-national companies to small “mom and pop” businesses.

Social media has, like everything else, been impacted by this data-driven reality, but there’s a catch. Unless you’re selling a physical product, it’s often difficult to establish a causal relationship between social media engagement and tangible impact. (i.e., increase in donations, more attendance at events, etc.). But there is a way to collect data (and report on it) which, I believe, can help close the gap between engagement and causality. 

And in this post, I’ll share how.

Big Little Numbers

From coffee to chocolate, there are MANY temptations out there. In social media, in particular, we can be tempted to look at the “big numbers” that may not necessarily tell us anything that's relevant. For me, these types of numbers include “impressions” or “reach” for specific posts. 

Since my work is predicated on alumni interactions, I can’t deduce much from these broad numbers. But I can make some assumptions when I drill down a bit.

Since the majority of my work on Twitter is based on targeted engagement as opposed to organic reach, I can say with confidence that certain interactions on Twitter and LinkedIn, specifically, are with my target audience (i.e., alumni). 

Let me explain.

 Occasionally, I’ll tweet something like this.

In the majority of cases (I would surmise it’s at least 95% of the time), though, my posts are directed at a specific group of individuals. This was the case with my recent outreach on behalf of our Reflective Leader program (which I touched upon in my previous post).

As I mentioned previously, it’s a good bet that many of the clickthroughs, retweets, likes, and comments from this outreach were from the alumni I targeted.

And this is how I reported this information to my supervisor, after crunching the numbers via Spredfast, the platform I use to schedule posts and analyze data.

For LinkedIn, I’m able to make some of the same assertions since our group is composed entirely of HBS grads. 

Unfortunately, when it comes to Facebook—with the exception our our private group—I can’t make the same claims. I have no idea if clickthroughs are from alumni or people who are just interested in our page and have no affiliation with the school. 

Closer to Fine

When I first started working at HBS 6+ years ago, I faced a problem. It wasn’t my 3-hour daily commute or the fact that the person who is writing this post—and works for arguably the best academic institution in the world—does something mind numbingly dumb each week (the latest being repeatedly driving over the grass in my driveway). 

No, the problem I encountered was...

How on earth am I going to measure the impact of my social media work?

I could, as the first part of this post conveys, focus solely on clickthroughs and other metrics.

Or I could do something that, on its surface, seems a little crazy.

I could track and report on 

EVERY

SINGLE

ALUMNI 

INTERACTION

ON SOCIAL MEDIA.

So that’s what I did.

From my first days on the job, I would review the interactions (likes, comments, and retweets) I helped generate on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram among our alumni and add them to my nascent data set. 

It took a while to gain traction with this effort (my first full month on the job generated only 364 alumni interactions), but things picked up eventually and today we’re averaging 5,000+ interactions a month. 

I also made sure to archive any positive (as well as negative) feedback on my work for later use.

The Year in Review

The easiest part of my work is packaging and sharing my social media data. All told, it takes me innumerable hours to collect it all; it only takes me a few hours or so to translate the information into a useable form. 

The culmination of this work is my annual “Year in Review."

I start with the qualitative data (i.e., the feedback from alumni that I have archived) that I have collected.

I then move on to the quantitative data, making sure to share any increase or decrease in overall engagement over time.

Next, I share the potentially inconclusive data (for example, clickthroughs), also including any fluctuations over time.

Finally, I share my reflections on the data and hopes for the year ahead.

I must admit that there’s only so much I can draw from this data.

I can’t tell definitively if this work is generating more alumni donations or event attendance.

But I can say that...

-Alumni interactions via social media have increased by more that 1,800% since my first full year at HBS.

-There is ample quantitative (increase in likes, retweets, etc.) and qualitative proof that alumni appreciate what I’m doing.

If I have any advice for other social media professionals it would be the following:

1) Speak with your colleagues--both your supervisor and your co-workers--and see what metrics matter to them.

2) Research what you can actually report on. That is, what can you claim is "true?" For me, as this post has covered, this boils down to alumni engagement and web activity.

3) Find as many automated tools as possible to accomplish your analysis and reporting. I use Spredfast for my web-based work. The alumni tracking work (measuring likes, retweets, etc.), on the other hand, is a manual process and very time consuming.

4) And, finally, find an easily understandable and attractive way to "share" your data. I have used everything from charts to graphs to achieve this end.

Was this post helpful? Was there anything that I missed? Please leave any feedback you have in the comments section below.

Robert Bochnak manages social media for the Harvard Business School’s alumni office. He’s also the former writer and editor of GradMatters: The Blog for Tufts GSAS.

Other Recent Posts:

Texas Football, Social Media, and Everything In Between

Social Media, the Great Balloon Fiasco, and How I Became a Dog Person

"Old School: Nostalgia and the Social Media Professional"

NYC, Blood (Lots of Blood), and the Annual Social Media Strategies Summit

Easy Ways (Really!) To Create Videos for Social Media

A Guide to Kick-A#*% Social Media Event Coverage

No, Not Everyone Can Do It: Why Social Media Management Is Way Harder Than You Think.

Picture Perfect? Capturing and Sharing Photos on Social Media

Social Media, Greeting Cards, and Everything in Between