Hitting a moving target is a real challenge, and things are moving faster in the online marketing world than any human being with normal sleep habits can keep up with.

We all think we should be paying attention to the opportunities the online world presents.  Most of us voice actors do the preponderance of our work on the internet, so it’s only understandable that we’d turn to the web as a means of building out business too.

But Holy Buckets, there is just so much flailing around out there!  Who to trust?  What direction to go?  Where to put your assets of time and money?

I’m not here with the Holy Grail of answers…as far as I’m concerned, there are no “experts” or “gurus” of social media, only students, advanced students, and graduate teaching assistants.

MEASURING

One thing I think deserves your attention, though is metrics.  Measuring your impact on the virtual world.  Do I check my blog-viewer stats everyday?  Uh-huh.

What’s the best way to keep track of your presence on the web?  There are some decent (what I call) “approximators”.

Not long ago I blogged about the upset I felt with a diminished KLOUT score (which purports to measure your “engagement” in Socioal Media).  Commercial TV lives and dies by the Nielsen numbers, which set ad rates.  Everybody everywhere is struggling to find a similar metric that measures your online impact/reach.

Growing followers/friends in Social Network platforms (Twitter/FaceBook) is a rudimentary way of gauging your success.  But bigger numbers don’t always equal succesful marketing, as they dont’ reflect the quality of your relationships.

If you’re deep into SEO (Search Engine Optimization) or SEM (Search Engine Marketing), then your rank in a Google search is also a rough estimate of how well you’re doing.

Measuring your presence inevitably leads to “tweaking” your approach to build the numbers.  This is not a bad quest.  Any quantification that’s worth its salt will prompt you to do the things you should be doing anyway.  For instance, building a KLOUT score means you should be engaging your followers, contributing solid content, participating in meaningful conversations, and consistently being in the mix while paying it forward.  All admirable social media exercises.

But we’re a society driven by numbers, and analysis, and assessment, and it’s nice to have some figures to point at once in a while.

THE NUMBER CRUNCHERS

To give this any justice, though, requires bringing in people who make it their profession to crunch the numbers.  Typically an outfit like that also offers consulting on how to make the numbers better.

I like HubSpot.  They’ve been around a while.  They offer great information in their newsletter, blog, free materials and resources.  They also offer a 30-day free trial for their service.

Here’s a recent .pdf file they’ve made available for free, called The_Essential_Guide_to_Internet_Marketing.

Also, below, you can watch a quick video they’ve provided.  I’m not getting any kickbacks.  Just passing along info that could be helpful, and that I feel is legit.

What services do you use to quantify your presence on the web?

CourVO