Social media and KPIs : a literature review

Social Media evaluation and measurement covers a relevant aspect of corporate online communication. How do brands and companies manage their presence in activities related to social media? Being in the age of the World Wide Web every organisation can measure its activities of online communication itself. It is not a possibility it is actually a must, because the measurement of social media activity is not only defined as “audience reach” any more, but there are several additional elements to consider. The goal of every company is to gain profit and increase their ROI, for this social media evaluation is capable of displaying how successful the single online efforts contribute to that goal. The present thesis work aims at explaining why it is so important for companies nowadays to measure relevant online interactions through the main social networks. For this reason, a literature reviews on social media measurement in companies is carried out in order to evaluate the state-of-the-art topics. The main chapter presents the analysis of our results by showing the background of social media, the role of social media in companies and how companies can evaluate social media. Included are preparations, goal-setting, methods on how to measure and typical metrics as well as a choice of instruments allowing fulfilling the measurement process with defined Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) according to the papers reviewed.