Measuring Social Media, does it give competitive advantage?

No doubt that everybody doing any marketing activity, want to see if it is successful and want to document the success. The documentation is not only for one self but also for the c-level in your company.  Using time and energy measuring the Social Media, one can ask does it give your company any competitive advantage?

Numerous reports, discuss the topic measurement of Social Media and there are many angles how to do the measuring. One thing is certain do not engage in Social Media if it is not a part of your marketing strategy. Do not engage if you do not have a plan for how to get a competitive advantage out of the use of social media.  With the advance technology we have today, it has never been easier to engage in Social media.  With the easy access to Social media, you need to ask yourself some important questions before you will be able to get the full benefit of the competitive advantage:

• What part of your company will be able to use the competitive information you can gain from Social Media?
• What is the timeframe for using the competitive information?
• How will the competitive information affect your company choices?
• How willing would you be to change your company plans if the competitive information show you that your plans will change to negative?

If you find a positive answer to the above questions, you should take the next step. You need to start using your social media for competitive intelligence. You should start listening and engaging in the dialog about your own brand, and competitors brand. It is vital in this competitive world we are living in, to know and analyse what costumers say about your brand but even more vital what costumers say about your competitors brand. To go out there and collect the competitive intelligence you need to at least three areas of your competitors:

• Collect Information from your competitors and their costumers
• Marketing initiatives from competitors
• Product announcing from competitors
• Costumers interactions
• Analyse the competitive information
• Share of voice
• Share of conversation
• Trend analysis
• Build your business decisions on the above intelligence
• Base your decisions on the data above.
• Do not over react on the facts evaluate them and alter your planning if needed but in the end stick to your plan as long as it is sustainable.

You have metric for the above and even free metrics as Google analytics.

When you start to gathering intelligence on your competitors, you should be aware that your competitors are gathering intelligence on you. Be aware in you social media presence to have a footprint which do not damage your business but will help you expand your business even though that your competitors will learn from you but you will still have the competitive advantage.