According to proliferate the media and social networks, the greater its relevance for companies and brands. Who’d say? Now it really matters what to get reach and seduce digital audiences, and few companies resist its charms to launch all kinds of actions and strategies.

However, when measuring the ROI and impact of these actions, missing data and indicators. That hogging Agglomeration and followers is no longer the most important thing. There comes a time when they are difficult to exceed certain limits, and although the number of fans and unconditional loyal fans may continue to increase, growth is usually much less drastic. From that moment, the strategy should focus on nurturing and providing relevant information of interest and value-added content that do not make our legions of followers an army of “zombie fans”.

Playing the numbers in the war of the fans is amazing fashion trend. Even that buying followers seems already an old trick that besides convinces nobody obsolete and of course it is not recommended. However, when accountability, many other data you will need to demonstrate the effectiveness and success of different actions.

Media like television has been able to learn from it. Regardless of the number of viewers and followers users of their programs and channels, they have adopted the retweet father trending topic as to assess their impact on the media scene and social networks. Of course, in this battles, there are always winners and losers. The latter, who are often looking for the formula to transform information into a success at the ignorance of the rest of us. You say it, you sounds nice and you even believe it.

It is undeniable that the large volume of information that can analyze can give different readings to draw all kinds of conclusions. Even no shortage in the market the many tools that have emerged to provide us with a technology capable of measuring and analyzing all this flow of social information and reactions. But come the inventors of the darkest marketing and dazzle us with the ambiguous term of “social impacts”.

The social share against deception metrics

If the social share – the sum of all indicators of the major social networks such as tweets, likes, etc … – were not enough for some, now more “attractive” that call “impacts” to any message circulating through social networks regardless of whether they acquire really relevant, whether retwiteados or shared, and much less create real impact or return traffic.Ideal for new pseudo-strategists and social media spammers. As simple as accumulating a volume of X followers, send a message and assume that this message has generated an action or reaction in all his followers, or what is the same, multiply the number of users we have and that “we believe” who you will see our messages and sell the bike of social impacts. It would be like thinking that if we introduce a pamphlet 100 mailboxes, all will be read or even all served to the recipient ended acquiring the product or service advertised. Are we talking then data or white lies and speculation to disguise the reality?

A practical example. You promote the video of your event on social networks among a number of followers. However, at the end of his little promotion broadcast, video displays have barely increased. Sorry, your strategy has been a complete failure, and no matter the thousands of followers you have, or the number of tweets that used to promote it, much less, think only this, “such impacts” served something. His effort has been entirely in vain and not worth what you shared your video with millions of followers. Youtube own metrics can betray us and leave us totally evident when our video shows just a few tens of reproductions. So much ado about nothing?

Although it may seem a trivial issue, when customers, brands or advertisers who have developed certain actions, they want to check their results in a “quantitative” and know their true return. And although it is true that certain aspects can be difficult to quantify immediately, we can not turn social media into a speculative science that is dedicated to selling smoke and end up being a curse for a professional booming sector and growth.

No need to invent more indicators than those that own platform and social media give us. They reflect the actions and reactions of its most active and participatory participants. Instead of becoming cheaters and try to sell a false reality, be much more productive and efficient, stopping to investigate and discover why such actions actually failed to operate as one expected and was proposed.