ABSTRACT
The term 'social media' refers to a bouquet of online services that facilitate the way communication and content sharing is happening today through collaborative networks of people, communities and organizations. Social media as a new channel offers many benefits, but from a marketing perspective in particular it offers a much wider targeted reach as compared to traditional media. Effective social media engagement is an important business concern today. The key lies in understanding online customer behaviour as being part of a communication hierarchy, and designing online media content and activities, with a suitable assessment metric defined at each stage. Measurement using the metrics through a chosen tracking mechanism helps in assessing the progress of the social media strategy and the need to take corrective steps, as well as deciding on its cost effectiveness. The three types of metric include activity metrics, interaction metrics and return metrics.
