The Social Media Metrics Glossary

Excerpts taken from “The Numbers Game” from Marketing Magazine, June 2009 by Matt Semansky

One of the challenges advertisers face in trying to catch up to the breakneck pace of social media development is learning and understanding new terms of measurement. To help provide a foundation, the Internet Advertising Bureau last month released a document entitled Social Media Ad Metrics Definitions. Along with traditional online metrics such as unique visitors, cost-per-unique visitor and page views, the IAB lists terms for social media and user-generated content sites. They include:

VISITS

• Return visits: the average number of times a user to a site or application over a certain time period.
• Interaction rate: the proportion of users who interact with an ad or application.
• Time spent: during a specific visit or session.

THE IAB LISTS THE FOLLOWING METRICS TO HELP MEDIA AGENCIES PLAN AND EXECUTE CAMPAIGNS IN THE BLOGOSPHERE

• Conversion-relevant links: the number of links to and from content that contains phrases from a client's RFP or insertion order from all sites identified as part of the client's campaign.
• Conversation reach: the number of unique visitors per month in all sites related to the conversation in which the client is participating.
• Conversation density of conversation-relevant posts: percentage for which conversation phrases from a client's RFP or insertion order match posted content on sites identified in the client's campaign plan.

THE DOCUMENT ALSO SUGGESTS WAYS OF MEASURING THE AUTHORITY OF A GIVEN BLOG OR AN INDIVIDUAL POSTING CONTENT RELEVANT TO A PARTICULAR TOPIC

• Number of conversation-relevant posts on the site
• Number of links to conversation-relevant posts on the site
• Mean time between conversation-relevant posts: measures how often, on average, an author posts about the relevant topic.

WHEN IT COMES TO WIDGETS OR SOCIAL MEDIA APPLICATIONS DEVELOPED FOR CAMPAIGNS, THE IAB IDENTIFIES THE FOLLOWING METRICS:

• Installs: number of users who install a widget/application.
• Active users: total users interacting with an application overa specific time frame.
• Audience profile: demographics based on self-reporteduser data.
• Unique user reach: the percentage of users who have installed an application among the total social media audience.

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