Social media has enabled brands to become more human than ever before. Community managers are Facebooking and tweeting on behalf of their brands, and the good ones embody the brand’s essential characteristics and tone.

It’s pretty cool stuff, and a real development in the history of branding.

With the increase in marketing-focused social media, we need new ways to measure the strength of a brand’s social media activity. Since brands are acting a whole lot more like people, it seems worthwhile to look at how social intelligence is measured in people and then see if that can also be applied to brands.

One of the pioneers in understanding social intelligence on a human level is Karl Albrecht. His concept includes five key dimensions:

Situational radar: The ability to “read” situations, understand the social context that influences behavior and choose the behavioral strategies that are most likely to be successful.

Presence: Also known as “bearing,” presence is the external sense of one’s self that others perceive—confidence, self-respect and self-worth.

Authenticity: The opposite of being “phony,” authenticity is a way of behaving that engenders a perception that one is honest with one’s self as well as with others.

Clarity: The ability to express one’s self clearly, use language effectively, explain concepts clearly and persuade with ideas.

Empathy: More than just an internal sense of relatedness or appreciation for the experiences of others, empathy in this context is the ability to create a sense of connectedness with others, to get them on your wavelength and invite them to move with and toward you rather than away from and against you.

All of these apply quite readily to the digital social media space as a way to evaluate a brand’s social media activity:

Situational radar: Are you aware of what’s going on—are you paying attention to consumers’ posts as well as the context of those posts? Do you modify your actions in response?

Presence: Do you have a strong voice? Is it engaging and upbeat, or has your online presence lapsed into wallflower territory?

Authenticity: This is a critical one. There have been far too many examples of brands getting busted for dishonesty through social media.

Clarity: This is also crucial—140 characters demands clarity!

Empathy: We need to create connectedness not just through tone and attitude, but though actions as well. Are you leveraging social media to promote your brand’s environmental or humanitarian activities and goals?

You could easily create a scorecard with these criteria to measure your social media, identify weak spots and plan for improvement. It could be the starting point for surveys and research into the effectiveness of your brand’s social media efforts.

It’s very interesting and revealing how well Albrecht’s social intelligence  framework applies to social media. At the end of the day, we’re people, and we want to be treated like people—not only by our friends, families and employers but also by the brands and businesses we engage with.