I never tire of hearing Jim Sterne speak at conferences. Known as the “Godfather of online marketing”, he’s president of the Web Analytics Association, a prolific author of books on web metrics and he’s even found time to blog for us!

Today he was delving into Social Media Metrics, something we talk about in our white paper.

A blogger’s dream because he talks in wonderfully eloquent and unique sound bites, I’ve only needed to simply quote some of them below to give you a sense of his presentation:

- You can have too much data. What you need is insight.

- Figure out how to analyse and put it to use.

- A social media is a tool that someone uses to spread a message.

- Social media is as good as web as far as change and permanency.

- Measurement doesn’t matter unless there’s a purpose.

- Reach & frequency is an “opportunity to share.”

- In order to know if your marketing is working ask people. If people are searching for your brand then yes.

- Measure your audience’s attitude – how do they feel?

- It’s not just who’s influential, it’s what subjects they’re interested in.

- It doesn't matter unless people take action.

- Do they leave something behind. Were they engaged enough to say I’m willing to be in your database.

- Is social media improving your marketing results?

He then gave an excellent formulae to the audience on:

How much is a social media participant worth?

If:

10,000 people are talking about shampoo

And, a new customer has a life time value of $29 (profit)

And, joining that conversation helps 5% to try

Then:

10,000 x 5% = 500

500 x 5% = 25

25 x $29 = 725

725/10,000 = $0.0725 per participant = 7.25 cents 

So inspiring, as I write Jim still has a line of 10 people waiting to talk to him 20 miniutes after he's finished talking!

Check out all our coverage, photos on Facebook and Flickr and follow our Tweets for the day.

Cheers

Mel