What’s ‘Best’ is What Works

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What’s ‘Best’ is What Works

Posted in Focus.com, Inbox Influencer, Social CRM, Social Intelligence, Social Media Analytics, Social Media Metrics, Strategy and Analysis by Chris Selland on January 25th, 2012

I jumped into a discussion today on Focus.com where a community member asked the question “What’s the best time to post to social networks?”

My answer, which built off fellow Focus Expert Andrew Baker’s, is that the ‘best’ time is when your audience is attentive and available – and when you have the right content. And those times depend – so it’s very difficult (and I’d argue impossible – or at least overly simplistic) to say something like ‘11:00 AM”.

Which in turn got me thinking about the related and much-debated topic of ‘Influence’. I read a post yesterday on the Pivot Conference site which makes the argument that Influence is a ‘numbers game’.

While at Terametric we certainly believe in numbers (we have our own Timing Optimization and Influence Measurement algorithms in our Optimizer for Twitter and Inbox Influencer products), the answer still ‘depends’ on context – and on what you’re trying to accomplish.

As my friend and fellow Enterprise Irregular (and Focus Expert) Paul Greenberg recently posted (using the much-maligned but also widely-used Klout score as a proxy):

Klout is good at measuring how engaged an individual is on social channels at any given time but doesn’t really measure influencers of the buyer kind or the industry kind. Three weeks off the grid would lower your Klout score but wouldn’t necessarily impact your influence. You see that don’t you?

In other words, numbers help but they only provide guideposts to ‘the answer’ – not ‘the answer’ itself.

‘The answer’ is ‘what works’ – and that only comes from defining what you will measure, and then in turn testing, and benchmarking those results against those desired results.

At Terametric we are, of course, rather partial to our own Timing & Influence algorithms but are also exploring opportunities to work with other offerings in order to meet customer preference and provide a more complete picture of your success in attaining the results that matter most to you. At the same time we will be rolling out a suite of services – some of them built around our own technology but also working in conjunction with partners – that can help you better define, measure, benchmark and improve the metrics you and your organization most care about.

Please contact us to learn more, and we’d love to hear your feedback and experiences. And of course, if you’re not already using Inbox Influencer (it’s 100% free) signup today!