Measuring the Success of Social Media: Matching Identified Success Factors to Social Media KPIs

Abstract

With the rise of social platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc., recently, a lot of excitement and optimism around the potential of corporate social media usage have emerged. Social media activities allow companies to reach an attractive mass audience segment, but just as for any other marketing medium, measurement is a critical component of success. Hence, many critical success factors (CSFs) necessary for successful B2C social media efforts have been compiled in literature over the last years. Although these CSFs are numerous, a classification for a purposeful application as well as corresponding key performance indicators (KPIs) for the concrete measurement of CSFs are missing. Therefore, first (1), this research aims at the identification of existing CSFs for social media in enterprises in literature and classifying them by their specific application. Second (2), to allow the definite measurement of CSFs, corresponding KPIs are identified and matched towards them.