There is a plethora of performance metrics that measure performance in various Social Media channels, including Twitter. These metrics usually track either inbound or outbound Twitter activities which we think are critical for Social Media Marketers to maximize their Twitter Marketing Return on Investment, ROI.

Let’s define an inbound Twitter metric as a metric that measures the impacts your Social Media marketing or your brand is driving in the Twitter channel. Let’s also define an outbound Twitter metric as any metric that measures the marketing activities you must execute in the Twitter channel. Below, we will share the top three inbound Twitter metrics that each Social Media marketer should not ignore.

1. Number of Follower Mentions you receive
The larger the number of followers you have, the wider your Twitter influence and the more people will listen. Thus, gaining more followers should increase and widen your brand’s exposure. However, simple follower addition is not enough, it is important that your followers are also talking about you. The best way to do this is to get referrals from your followers to their networks. Thus, you should also measure how many of your followers mention you in their tweets. In marketing parlance, this is simply word of mouth marketing.

Source: http://www.saschakimmel.com

2. Number of Influencers Who Follow You
While it is good to have a large following, it is crucial to secure as many important “influencers” as your own followers. There are influencers (i.e. followers who use Twitter prolifically and in turn everyone follows for the official “word”) in every niche industry. The aim is to create compelling content that results in these influencers following you as they have the greatest impact in the Twitter-sphere.

3. Unique Messages (RT) Retweeted
Lastly, everyone loves to see their tweets retweeted on Twitter. There is a distinction between how many times an individual tweet is retweeted and the totally number of retweets you receive. This measurement should be calculated as an average to determine consistency of content and what specific topics and insights resonate with your Twitter-sphere following and the community at large.

Are there other inbound Twitter marketing metrics that you believe are equally or more important to measure performance? Please share those you think are important in our comments below.

Tags: marketing investment, marketing measurement, marketing metrics, social media analysis, Social Media Measurement, twitter

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 9th, 2010 at 1:15 PM by anureddy and is filed under Social Media ROI, Strategy and Analysis. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.