• by Sean Hargrave , Staff Writer, February 4, 2015

Today it's social's turn to say metrics are great but just don't actually use them -- at least in terms of likes and shares. Instead of counting, you should measure social, the #IPASocialWorks project suggests. It's a digital marketing initiative supported by The Institute of Practitioners (IPA), The Marketing Society and the Market Research Society (MRS), which is designed to help brands understand what they get from social. The participants suggest that this should not be counted in terms of likes and shares but rather by measuring the overall process of what happened, where, why and when. Doing this builds up an overall picture of social media progress that is not bogged down by individual key metrics.

Come again? So you want us to measure something without counting so we can get a measurement of what we shouldn't be counted so we can come up with an ROI, which presumably has to be measured by counting? Anyone else confused?

Display has had this exact problem of going out to advertisers with the message that everything can be tracked and accounted for and an ROI figure attributed to spend to show what a wise investment it has all been. Trouble is, it can't, of course. Just one in a thousand people click on an ad, and so we have moved on to talk of branding and share of voice. In other words, if they don't see your name there, they'll see your rival's, so best pay up quick.

It is for this reason that we need a total rethink in metrics. With the growing influence of video now in digital advertising, I wouldn't be surprised if we move to metrics which deal with the proportion of an audience that was exposed to a message so many times. In other words, television metrics. 

Social ninjas have been telling brands for some time that they can grow followers and get more likes and shares. Brands were told this meant something -- that these numbers had intrinsic value. Then Facebook dialled down organic reach to single-figure percentages of a brand's total following, and brands started to realise they weren't hitting many more of their Twitter followers either. Thus, Facebook has already become an advertising medium, with a bit of social thrown in, and Twitter is working on ways to do much the same.

So if you shouldn't count the likes and the shares, what should you count? And if you're measuring something, don't you have to count a few bits and bobs before you get there? If the ultimate goal is ROI, how on earth are you going to get there without knowing what adds up to give you your figure? The more you delve in to social, the more you realise the ninja's really don't have much more of a clue than you do but they're happy to spin a great yarn if you'd like.

Where does this leave us, then? Well, sorry, but I've really got to make the same point again. In the not-too-distant future, I reckon digital marketers will be having the same types of conversations with brands that tv ad men have had for years. We spent x amount to reach x per cent of your audience x number of times and x per cent were so enthralled they engaged with us. But the main thing will be what percentage of my target market I reached, how often, and perhaps even for how long.

The metrics that digital makes possible have all been made obsolete, largely because they are so rare or so prone to fraud. Retailers relying on direct response may well be able to work differently and establish which sites provide leads for the least amount of investment, because the sale happens in the next click or two. For the rest of brands not involved in direct e-commerce, it's hard to imagine us not going back to the future, to borrow a title, and give tv metrics a second chance.