Third Tuesday Toronto kicked off its 2010 series with a full-day Measurement Matters conference last Tuesday, September 28. The event covered a number of measurement-related topics from how to set-up a social media command centre to how to show your social media ROI — a panel featuring CNW’s own Charles Funk, Director of Product Management, MediaVantage.

While each panel expert offered their own unique perspective and approach, they all seemed to agree that it’s crucial to develop a comprehensive monitoring and measurement plan. After all, if you don’t know where you’re going, it doesn’t matter how you get there. Decide which metrics are most important to measure by looking first at your goals.

Here are six tips to help you move beyond the tools and help you develop a solid social media monitoring and measurement plan:

1. First things first: ensure everyone in your organization agrees on how to define success. This will help you decide what’s important to measure, track progress over time and demonstrate the return on your social media efforts.

2. Include a workflow in your plan. As you monitor and gather information, how will you distribute it to others in your organization?  Determine a process to funnel the information into R&D, customer service, HR, IR, and other departments who may benefit from this intelligence.

3. Determine what you’re going to monitor and where. Find out where your audience is and how they talk about your brand. This will help you find the keywords and phrases that you should be monitoring. It’s also important to find those key people, whether they are influencers or not, who respond to your material and are already engaged in your activities – they will be key as you move forward.

4. Pick your monitoring tools and set up a social media command centre that works with your workflow and measurement plan. Spread your net wide and consider using a combination of paid and free services.

5. Start monitoring conversations and measuring key metrics such as volume, sentiment, engagement, share of voice, and share of conversation.

6. Remember that it’s about more than just numbers. Find out what the stats mean. How do they relate to your definition of success? What are you going to do with this information? How can you improve or modify your campaign based on this information? How have these stats changed over time? Turn these numbers into intelligence.

Remember, social media gives us the opportunity to really listen to and learn from our audiences. Pay attention to the conversations and adjust your efforts as you go to improve your success.

Download a copy of our white paper, Continuous Measurement and Analysis, for more on how to use monitoring intelligence to make continuous adjustments to your strategic communication plans.