Social Media Metrics - equally relevant for personal branding?

The trend to build one’s personal brand has been fast catching up. If people are sharing something on their profile, somewhere down within they want that comment/post to go viral among their network. Taking cues from Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, I believe probably yearning of love/belonging and esteem has what has been leveraged by various social media channels to the tee! And perhaps that is also a reason, few organizations have been built in the last decade that will give us some scores on our influence and reach. Their growth validates the fact that how we as an individual also love the jargon of social media metrics! It is just not for business only!

Let us look at some of the metrics across various social networks that an individual should monitor and the players who are building algorithms over and above it.

Basic metrics - These are equally desirable even for an individual

• Count of friends and followers - Who would not like to boast of an organic reach of 1000+ and share among their circle.

• Number of likes/comments/shares - Average number of retweets/likes/shares can help provide you insights on the extent to which content you share is resonating with your social network.

• Change in follower growth on daily basis for your various social handles is again a testimony on your popularity.

Some social network specific can also help gauge how popular are you

• Twitter Lists – This is a powerful metrics to gauge how many users/influencers have curated your profile in one of the public lists. So, if you want be perceived as a finance champion. The different finance public lists you are part of will help you assess your position

• Linked In profile views & search count – Linked In does it really well in terms of the metrics it shows for each profile. You can compare yourself with your peers on a relative basis.

However, it can be really daunting to go about looking for these independently. Few providers are doing an amazing job in giving out an aggregate score for your all social media activities –

Klout – this is by far the best metric an individual can keep a tab on for understanding their overall social influence. You can connect multiple social networks and see an aggregated score. It also provides the topics on which you are perceived as an influencer. Klout has been a pioneer in letting an individual getting some value out of their social media activities in form of Perks as well!

Brand Yourself - Another provider who does Online reputation management based on your social profiles and look at the relevant links that pops up in Google search when your ‘name’ is typed. It helps in providing weekly summary of how your online reputation has been improved based on your digital activities. It helps you to boost your links for Google search with your name.

In fact one of the providers called Empire Avenue takes the game notch higher by letting people trade one another in a social trading game.

There are many others who can help you uncover various insights out of your social media activities like Kred, PeerIndex etc. So, if you are serious about building your personal brand on social media, it is time to keep a check on relevant metrics every day.

Would love to hear any other important metrics that might be relevant for an individual for personal branding!

About the author

Nishith has vast experience in products & solutions business focused on Social Media/Customer Experience in various roles. In his current role, he heads overall strategy and growth hacking for Thoughtbuzz. In his previous role, he successfully incubated a social customer service product business called Social IQ for TO THE NEW ventures which has now been merged with Thoughtbuzz