Answer 1  The calculation is simply as follows: LinkedIn{Connections}+Facebook{Friends}+Twitter{Followers}.

My Social Reach (LIFT) total social is as follows = LinkedIn “Connections” (7,078)+ Facebook “Friends” (4,727)+Twitter  “Followers”(30,542)+ This means I have access to communicate my message directly to 42,000+ individuals who have opted-in to receive (follow) my messages.  Charts 1 & 2 clearly depict what Social Media (SM) Lift is and how I derived at my score:

This chart (#1) speaks to the definition of what a social media reach (LIFT) score is as follows:

Chart 1 – SM Lift Definition

This chart (#2) speaks to what my specific social media reach (LIFT) score is and how it is calculated:

Chart 2 – SM Marketing Lift Calculation

Ever notice firms claiming to be experts in SM, yet have relatively low Social Reach and Lift Scores?  I have seen global consulting, database management, direct marketing and even advertising agency firms with paltry scores  under 10,000, all claiming to be able to help you develop ‘world-class social media programs’. My question to you is, if they are unable to develop decent reach (LIFT) for their own firms (i.e. earn a high SM lift score), then how in the world will they be able to help you and your organization? Social Media Lift loosely translates to Database Size in traditional marketing & CRM terms.

WHY IS SMM LIFT SO IMPORTANT?

Let’s reveal the root of the problem with a set of simple questions as follows:

Question 2: What will most social media & traditional media firms try to sell you so that THEY make the most $$?

Answer 2: Setting up Facebook fan pages, developing new websites, setting up infrastructure and establishing your presence in social media, the web, etc. While these get you established in social media or the web, they do little to provide bottom line value to your business. Building social media infrastructure without adding effective lift is like having a gun with just a few bullets – Looks impressive, but will enable you to only hit a very few targets with limited results.

Question 3: What will provide you with the highest business value from social media?

Answer 3: Having a large social LIFT Score (a.k.a. SM reach), bigger than your competitors, so that you may communicate, sell, brand and influence your followers. Without effect LIFT you are limited by how widespread you can leverage your message to the world.

Of course having high quality contacts and building relationships with them is equally important, but if you don’t have a decent lift score or social media following, you can’t get do either of these next steps.  I, for example, have screened each of my friends/connections/follows to ensure they are of high quality and are of the type that can help my business grow.  In this case, Reach Quality = Correlation of Lift contact Needs/profile to your brand messaging/content.

HOW DO I ACHIEVE A HIGH LIFT SCORE?

Question 4: How do you attain a high social media lift score?

Answer 4:  By running effective social media follower, friend, connection campaigns to increase your lift score. There are many examples of these campaigns by organizations such as ‘help us reach 100,000 Facebook fans and we’ll donate to $x to charity’, ‘when we reach 50,000 followers, we’ll host a fan appreciation party’, please connect to me for important news on topic x’, etc. It is surprising how many organizations establish themselves in social media (‘hey, I’m now here’), but then do nothing do increase their fan bases, reach, etc. The web is littered with firms that have taken the first step in getting into social media, but have done very little to expand their presence and LIFT scores. This last step is the most important in ‘getting real’ in terms of social media.  I have developed a very unique cross-platform campaign system that is highly effective in gaining connections, friends, followers – hence my high LIFT score.

HOW CAN I MONITOR & MANAGE MY OWN LIFT SCORE?

If you really want to determine your score, your firm’s score or that of a SM company you want to hire, you now have to look no further than a relatively new site called SocialChiefs.com (http://www.socialchiefs.com) .  You submit your account information to this site and they calculate your social media reach (LIFT) for you (http://www.socialchiefs.com/default.aspx?c=3 ). I recently did this and found out in recent weeks that I was rated the #4 globally in SM Reach by SocialChiefs per the following chart:

Chart 3 – Global SM Reach Ranking as Rated by SocialChiefs.com

The following chart illustrated my specific reach (LIFT) calculations by SocialChiefs.com

Chart 4 – Specific Global SM Reach (LIFT) Calculations as Rated by SocialChiefs.com

Question 5: What is your SM reach (LIFT) score and what is the score of the social media firm you’ve hired?

Commentary on your score – If you hired a SM firm to build you SM presence and now your LIFT score is under 10,000, then you likely got ripped off and/or not netting the true power of social media. They took the big $$ to get you set up in social media and then left you hanging with paltry reach (LIFT) numbers (<10,000) which is equivalent to taking the money and leaving you with little to show in terms of real business value.  “Hey look at my Facebook Fan page – isn’t it great! But I only have 200 fans to communicate with – was this really worth it?”