I'll stick with the thoughts of Gary Vaynerchuck. ROI is only a minor detail! Just focus on your global brand, and leveraging that brand is the key. Produce good content EVERY DAY! And truly be involved with your community base, and you will win
Jorge Barba
· 2 months ago
Bingo! let go and watch it grow. Instead use ReturnOnInsight much more powerful.
lauriebroderick
· 2 months ago
But Gary can also tell you how much more wine he has sold since doing wine TV
John
· 2 months ago
My boss would like that answer... I might steal that!
Andrew Krebs-Smith
· 2 months ago
I agree, but try telling that to paying clients.
Andres
· 2 months ago
yeeeahhh...no. That is like saying Sales is a minor detail for a Sales team. Good content costs money. I need to make a good case to fund the creation of good content.
I have all the faith of the world and strongly believe how Social is good - but I also want to see the moniessss. It is definitely not a minor thing.
Brandon St. Kaye
· 2 months ago
As a social media consultant I find that traffic numbers and impressions don't illustrate an engaged conversation or successful campaign. The problem isn't the ability to measure the amount of engagement, but rather the steep expectations of having to be accountable on the same scale as traditional media (Television ads, media buys, and full marketing campaigns). The common misconception is that "social business techniques" are an extension of traditional marketing, if companies are not willing to admit they don't fully understand the power and purpose of "social business techniques" (direct customer engagement, real-time survey data and experimental ideas) it is worse than having nothing at all. The campaigns ends up attempting one thing and failing at another. Most people looking for ROI and quantifiable data are still looking at individual engagement, eyeballs, immediate sales and sign ups.
The truth is "social business techniques" media holds a stronger parallel to a friend recommending a product, or a brand service representative going the extra mile going the extra mile to leave you happy. Its serves as way to make one brand feel like a local mom and pop store and something you can brag about being a part of. The new metrics exist, but they aren't being accepted by traditional companies employing social business strategies just yet.
I have some ideas on what seems to be consistent barometers for well received campaigns, but it is yet to be seen what is adopted as the major indicators.
(In retrospect this is a bit long for a comment, I was just started typing and found myself writing about a topic that hit close to home.)
andrewmueller
· 2 months ago
It is great that you point out that very few companies measure the true ROI for their social media efforts but is disconcerting that you qualify this fact as being worrisome and discouraging. It seems that judgement is placed on the companies that engage in social media and have not yet figured out how to measure the ROI. Social media is in its infancy and companies are figuring it out now, I commend them for embracing it with the attitude that they will learn as they go. Yes, I know many will never figure it out, wont even really try, and will just flutter in the social media wind, but a few will figure it out and others will learn from them.
Don't get me wrong, I firmly believe in measuring the financial impact of your social media efforts and it is definately possible to measure some of the impact of social media efforts in terms of true ROI. The problem is that is very hard, if not impossible, to measure the long term effect that social media efforts can have on your brand sentiment positive or negative and how this translates to an increase or decrease of sales over time. For instance if you succeed in creating a truly charismatic brand that evokes customer loyalty and diehard evangelists, you will be able to sell more product at higher prices. How would you divide the return among the many activities and facets of your company that worked in concert to achieve this feat?
You say that "for social media and social technology to really work that businesses need to measure its impact, positive and negative", and you are right. But this needs to be done with both hard (financial) and soft (trending) measurements. The results need to be compared to benchmarks and predetermined desired outcomes; from here the strategies, tactics, methods, can be tweaked to achieve better results.
Another thing to be aware of is the the difference between a social media effort and direct marketing over a social media channel (eg. @delloutlet on twitter). The latter is simple to measure.
Christina Warren
· 2 months ago
My statement really wasn't meant as a judgment on companies that aren't measuring or looking at how to measure social media ROI -- I agree with you, the fact that they are using it at all is great -- but I still stand by my statement that it is worrisome that such a large percentage of the sample didn't even know if they could measure ROI from their social tools.
Yes, social media is in its infancy and the best ways to get the hard and soft measures you mention are still being figured out, but I get worried when it appears that analysis is never even part of the equation. Lots of jobs specifically for social media are cropping up, which is wonderful - but those jobs will be eliminated if companies can't produce tangible reports to see how well something is working (or not working). I worry that by not treating social media as any other aspect of a marketing or customer service or visibility venture, companies will be more inclined to just pass on direct-engagement if they don't experience an increase in sales or retentions (that might not even be directly attributable to social media, but that they could use as a feeler to credit SM).
I do agree that there need to be more tools and more information out there for businesses to track these metrics. That in and of itself is a burgeoning industry.
andrewmueller
· 2 months ago
Hello Christina,
thanks for the reply. It seems that we are really not far from agreement. I too believe the ROI should be measured whenever possible and that is not the only measurement of value.
I think that many businesses are analyzing their social media efforts but are measuring them against desired outcomes rather than in true ROI. Is this a bad thing? Is it less valuable than measuring ROI? For some maybe, but perhaps not for those that have a deep understanding of their businesses, who understand how customer interactions at every touchpoint determine the brand, and how changes in brand sentiment affect frequency, reach, and yield.
We all must remember that social media is a disruptive technology that spans numerous corporate silos including, marketing, pr, customer service, HR, R&D, communications and more. Honestly, even though I believe that true ROI is measurable for well defined social media initiatives, I am extremely skeptical when anyone tells me they can truly measure the ROI of a broad social media effort that spans numerous corporate silos, and it is exactly these companies that are fast to move with a well concieved strategy on broad social media efforts that will be positioned to benefit the most.
jacobmorgan
· 2 months ago
Although surprising it's not shocking. The problem with social media ROI stems from a larger problem that is marketing accountability. Combine that with the fact that consultants keep creating various acronyms for ROI or tell clients that they can't measure it and it's no surprise that the results are the way they are. I think it would be interesting to also see how many of these people are even asked by their execs to see some form of ROI report.
We're going to see this change in the future and accountability is going to become crucial.
usb verlangerung
· 2 months ago
I really disagree with you guys on this one. You absolutely can measure social media ROI in real, tangible numbers with a bit of effort. Saying you can't measure it is a cop-out....it's code for "I don't want to do the work to measure it."
Andrew Krebs-Smith
· 2 months ago
I agree, but instead of just saying that it's possible why don't you join the conversation and tell us how you do it.
madfoot
· 2 months ago
Great -- please enlighten us as to HOW.
Jason Rukus
· 2 months ago
Since the point of social media is to engage your audience it's fairly easy to quantify in the same way you can tell it's raining by sticking your arm out the window.
The top companies that have always been great at tracking will lead the way in ROI tools. However, Social Media is more for online branding, exposure and managing your online reputation.
There are measurements in place such as # of followers (Twitter) and fans (Facebook). I think it is still early in the game to be as precise as Dell but there will be tools and technology that comes out besides Google Analytics to track back conversions, visits ect..
abhinavsahai
· 2 months ago
Obviously there are ways to measure ROI but what is more important is you should what is it that you want to measure. What is your reason to be on social media? Do you want publicity ? Branding? Market your products ? Sell ? May be all of them ? Maybe you are just to listen ! Maybe just to keep the buzz around your brand going. And many more reasons... so in order to measure you must first know what is your aim. Once you know that only then can you think of measuring ROI. For instance, I may be in for just some buzz creation around my brand, in that case analytics and those stats might be sufficient. If i want customer feedback, only listening tools might be sufficient and the ROI might be not even stats, just words and mentions and responses are your ROI. In case you are looking for sales, tracking the $$$ is the ROI, just like DELL. A restaurant/food chain might be interested to spread buzz, listen feedback and get some sales- for him analytics, $$$ and mentions are all that matter. In the words of Olivier Blanchard these are : F-R-Y (Frequency, Reach, Yield), which covers all. So you've got to decide what aim is, and then definitely you can find your ROI. Mind you, ROI is not always in terms of $$$ but more often than not IT IS!
Evan Donovan
· 2 months ago
This post comes at a great time for our organization, but, honestly, I don't know yet what the answer is. I know we need to measure ROI in some way, but I couldn't find any good models/quantitative studies, because social media marketing is still in such flux. Hopefully some of the other comments will lend insight.
Bilal Jaffery
· 2 months ago
What tools are you using to measure success? What constitutes success? What is your ROI?
aarti
· 2 months ago
According to me no tools are availabel to measure success. only one way to show our success that is celebration.Always celebrate our success .success is journy not a destination.
Nadia
· 2 months ago
I think Google Analytics is a great way to track ROI. By tracking users movement through Social Media Campaigns- You can see how successful each campaign is and track sales as well. You just need to be smart about it!
Joe
· 2 months ago
Great idea Nadia!
Ian Huckabee
· 2 months ago
I agree with Nadia. A unique landing page with a call to action that leads to another unique page. Include the bit.ly in your Tweet. Watch it unfold on Analytics (read Julie Burgmeier's comment below).
Julie Burgmeier
· 2 months ago
I monitor referring sites/ecommerce in google analytics to check in on the efficacy of social media for my ecommerce business.
Anderson
· 2 months ago
Numbers of course
Lori Gama Gabriel
· 2 months ago
There are two ways to measure Social Media success. Decide which way is your goal: is it the quality of conversations or is it the numbers you're going after? Here's something I wrote a few months ago, about How to Measure Your Social Media Success Benchmark: http://lorigama.wordpress.com/201
Lori Gama Gabriel
· 2 months ago
Your “Success” Benchmark is the most important thing to decide on or the ROI ends up being a mystery.
First, decide what you’re measuring. Is it quality of conversations and perceptions of your company? Or is it the numbers: traffic to your Web site, SEO ranking, number of products sold?
To measure quality, such as building better relationships with targeted groups, ask yourself:
Are we part of what these groups are talking about? Are people talking about our company or our competitors? Are people referring us to their friends/followers? In Twitter, you can monitor when your brand is mentioned by using Splitweet.com. Hint: this is why Social Media is a good “listening” tool–because you can simply monitor this by viewing conversations; and by using tools like SplitTweet.com that alert you when your brand has been mentioned. Google Alerts are another good way to measure because you get an e-mail alert when someone Googles your name. PeopleBrowsr (My.PeopleBrowsr.com in business mode) can help you monitor your brand and “listen” for positive and negative tweets of which you can set auto-replies that promptly respond to positive and negative comments. (Note: for authenticity’s sake, I would follow up with another response, myself, as soon as possible). Are we providing substance and excellent customer service through our responses and conversations? If you’re measuring quantity: Review your Web site and/or blog’s statistics to see where traffic is coming from. Specifically: check the “referrals” stat. If you don’t have a very good stat program, use Google Analytics. It’s very comprehensive and it’s free. Measuring the quantity is very easy. Your “Success” Benchmark is the most important thing to decide on or the ROI can end up being a mysterious, unknown thing. Not good for business.
elkefleing
· 2 months ago
Hi Lori, your link is not working, would like to read that posting
J. Breeden
· 2 months ago
Is there a definitive "guide" to tracking ROI on Social Media? I mean, we can look at analytics all day long to see how people are getting to our website, but how do we track conversion to sale/contract (especially in industry like ours where you don't buy online)
gianandreafacchini
· 2 months ago
Well, I think that Roi is not necessarily the right metric. Call it as you prefer, but you should measure the return posed as a goal in your strategy: more comments, more post, better sentiment, etc. Even if you then find the cost per each comment or each post, how do you judge it as correct or too expensive or cheap? Are you comparing it with a cost per TV TRPs? I think that until we stay stuck with this story about Roi, we won't be able to grow as a reliable market.
Joanne Glasspoole
· 2 months ago
I think social media is more than ROI.
I am finding it very useful for reconnecting with inactive clients I'm too embarrassed to call, as well as leads & prospects that I had eliminated long ago because they never returned my calls or responded to my emails.
I recently closed two sales that I can attribute to Facebook--the first was my cousin (SEO services), and the second, an old prospect (Joomla consulting).
Social media also keeps me up-to-date on current events and trends in my industry. This makes me more valuable to my busy clients, because instead of waiting for them to contact me with work, I'm more proactive in approaching them with ideas that will help them achieve their Internet marketing goals, which means new work for me.
I don't think I can say I measure ROI of social media campaigns, but I do measure success rates. Quick example if one of my submissions gets popular on Digg or Mixx or any other social media site that will generate tons of traffic. I then analyze that traffic to see what was the conversion rate from all that traffic and then based on the time spent and the efforts to create promote the content I'll have a small idea of the ROI.
Lender
· 2 months ago
Tracking the ROI on a social media tool is indeed quite tricky. How do you measure how much of a profit you made on something as vague as that? As a point of interest, Twitter recently announced that they are finally starting to make a profit on the social networking platform, after operating in the red for quite some time. I wonder how they were able to measure their ROI?
Janet Fouts
· 2 months ago
There are a lot of reasons people don't measure. They don't have the tools. They forgot to set measurable goals when they started. They don't know what they could measure if they did. They are using social media for purposes that are difficult or impossible to accurately measure.They simply don't care about measurement.
lauriebroderick
· 2 months ago
Great article. Doesn't surprise me. Social Media is the sexy new media. Many clients don't care why they're doing it, they just want to tell their friends that they are. Goes back to basic principles of marketing - what are you trying to accomplish, what's your measurable objective, how will we measure success. Benchmark current state, track behavior change, course adjust if necessary. Why is it some folks think measuring ROI on Social Media is anything different from measuring all marketing ROI?
Christian Bergenstrahle
· 2 months ago
It's great that the measurement is up for discussion but isn't ROI part of the old school? Shouldn't we rather talk about ROO - Return on Objectives...? It should be more important to reach our goals.Me coming from the sponsorship industry can see many examples on sponsorship packages which are great - but if they include things that are not what the client/sponsor need it's still not a good investment (even though the total value might be great). Investmens can always be good but what we get out of them to reach our goals is what counts - isn't it?
Darrenjfox
· 2 months ago
Hi - I would suggest the measurement of "financial" return could be measured by understanding through such services as Google analytics; i.e.: Which customers came to your site via a social media channel, and then what did they purchase?
As some posts touched on below, if return on investment is perhaps just to get sign-ups or viewers of specific info (i.e. a blog with no financial gain) then perhaps your measure would be only on which social media site did they come from and did they sign up? Or how long did they stay on site for?
Taking this idea a step further whether "success" for you is sign-up/a viewer/a purchase whatever you may consider to be a "conversion" then you could start to monitor how often these particular social media channelled users:
- Spend in time on site - What does this type of customer look at? Or what are they looking for? - How much money do they spend? - How much profit did you make from customers in this "Social Media Channelled Category?" - Did they advertise a link for further conversion? How many more conversions or users were forwarded form this original customer? - Did this type of customer prefer immediate shipping or next day? - Was this kind of customer a "clicker happy (instead of "trigger" :p)" affiliate/banner clicker?
I think it could also be useful analysis to know from the various different social media sites does.... the type of consumer/customer/reader/paying customer differ? I.e.: all the ones coming from twitter is this just a trend of perhaps what looks 'cool' a quick 'buzz' in which case you monitor and realise a sudden high increase on traffic of quick lookers whose time on the site is only 5 seconds. Compared to perhaps a facebook user who added it in there profile and the type of customer is much more committed and spends more time due to the various psychologies between the different types of social media, another example could be a link from a blog which is perhaps more of a PR stunt (again another type of psychology?) would bring a different type of customer to monitor, I think the trends per different types of social media channel would be interesting and businesses could learn a lot from it to better understand which kind of networks adds the most value to there ROI.
I'd be interest to hear others thoughts on the above.
Please note: I think the subject of psychology is a far more in depth subject than I have touched on here and I of course appreciate like myself many users have a twitter account, a facebook account, and are also subscribed to various blog platforms, and regularly use youtube, the way in which your business is communicated via these different platform is what builds a sub-psychology behind perhaps how the customer will interpret your site. For example:
A twitter user sees it’s a popular trend and clicks just out of interest as it looks like the new "cool thing to do". Or a celebrity mentions your site link, so they think wow this must be "uber" interesting!!!
A Facebook user who saw it in someones status perhaps a close friend a work colleague or sees it in a family profile so they immediately have much more trust and interest before even clicking on the site.
A youtube user saw it in a video and think it’s a really trendy video so has a vision in the mind before even reaching the site.
I think this is why it’s a very interesting area to monitor as it can open up a lot of new doors to what kind of marketing/pr is most beneficial to your business and the most appropriate strategy for influencing a customer base to your product.
It's great that the measurement is up for discussion but isn't ROI part of the old school? Shouldn't we rather talk about ROO - Return on Objectives...? It should be more important to reach our goals.Me coming from the sponsorship industry can see many examples on sponsorship packages which are great - but if they include things that are not what the client/sponsor need it's still not a good investment (even though the total value might be great). Investmens can always be good but what we get out of them to reach our goals is what counts - isn't it?
luizfuzaro
· 2 months ago
Projects of social media are latent demands wait to made. Most of them will be implemented in bottom-up approach. Sometime using their resources available ad-hoc nd free softwares and with people self-motivated. When that's done CFO goes with the bill. How to measure the impact or value add this initiative ? The costs, always someboby can do with thumb rule and resouurse alocation ratio and about the benefits ? Improve relations with customers, atract best people for hire, increase revenues, feedback of products and services that's improved them. Bear this in mind when the bill comes
brenabelle
· 2 months ago
usb verlangerung:
Agree with your comment. Here's how I monitor my social media ROI:
1) Set up a Google Analytics account for your website. 2) Set up a good CRM (i.e. Salesforce, Zoho). 3) Auto-feed your contact/conversion forms into your CRM. 4) Link your social media campaigns to your website. 5) Monitor traffic and lead conversions resulting from your referring social media sites using Google Analytics. 6) Monitor your opportunities and closed opportunities from your referring social media sites using your CRM.
Thanks for drawing more attention to this imperative fact - social media must be monitored and measure if you want positive results yet alone knowing your ROI.
A key issue is using the right parameters to measure ROI. This is usually flawed in marketing as a whole and the same flawed approach happens in social media as well. I wrote an article called "Measuring the Value of Social Media" that discuss an appropriate approach. It can be found at http://bit.ly/hodQp. I think you will fing this useful.
As a company that helps companies build their social media presences we have technologies to track ROI... if you are interested in our company please contact me at jared@worldmarketmedia.com
John
· 2 months ago
There is an urban myth (for use of a better word) that social advertising can't be measured. I think for most Multinationals, ROI is a prerequisite for investment. Below are a couple of tips on how to get ROI.
Reach - Content consumption - How many users/viewers are interacting with and consuming the blog-generated contents (posts) and consumer-generated contents (comments)? Use Social sites Web analysis. Suggested initial target: 10% of overall unique visitors
Engagement = # of Comments / # of Posts The amount of comments to a posting within the blog Agency monitoring: Suggested target 1:5 ratio
Influence Share of influence - Positive vs negative sentiment of comments Agency monitoring: This really depends on your product but 35% positive 50% Neutral 15% negative might be a good target
Search Results = Search results based on keywords Internal check at end of campaign % 1st page results on selected keywords
John
· 2 months ago
I should also add, that there is a general concern from me, about media democratisation .... People with no expertise on a subject have as just as much influence as the people who've spent their entire life on a subject.
It’s all about who can shot the loudest these days… The good example of Wikipedia. An established globally recognised professor in the Environment was thrown out of the site because he disagreed with an individual about global warming who had no expertise in the subject. One wonders what company he was working for…
Just thought I might start a little debate….
krusk
· 2 months ago
I agree it's a little shocking, but I also think (as other's mentioned) that ROI isn't the be-all and end-all of social media measurement, I did a post about it with details here: http://www.turningnewsintoknowledge.com/2009/09...
That being said, relating social media involvement back to business goals should be the first thing any company does before creating a twitter account, FB page or whatever else. However, it's understandable (though not necessarily acceptable) that many just want to dive right in because of all the hype.
mary
· 2 months ago
You have to determine what your ROI would be before you can measure it.
If you want to look at drives to your site and such, Google Analytics is an easy win.
I think it's also really important to look at the buzz about your brand and not just your campaigns. I like Radian6 for that.
AmberNaslund
· 2 months ago
Thanks, Mary. Appreciate that. :)
Tim B.
· 2 months ago
It all comes down to what you are trying to measure. Is your brand trying to increase traffic to your site? Then you measure referring URLS to see if your social media efforts are working.
Are you trying to sell more products online? You track the increase of products sold and referring URLs.
Are you trying to manage your brand reputation? You track sentiment and mentions.
Are you trying to increase awareness of your brand? You track mentions and followers.
Are you trying to gather feedback? You track mentions.
Obviously I'm being vague here but there is no one right answer. You have to find what makes sense for your brand and what is important to you and create your own ROI.
Christopher Ott
· 2 months ago
We've focused on sales and tracking since the beginning. Referral Key has had ROI built in since day one.
Sites like Facebook, linkedIn, and Twitter are great but remember, their usefulness as a 'sales and marketing' tool is only a byproduct of people wishing it to be so. These tools weren't conceived or built with marketing as the primary objective which is why everyone's playing the "What's the return?" game.
hmmmmm... someday someone will develop a network with a focus on sales and tracking.
best, Christopher O. @ReferralKey "Your Trusted Referral Network"
social_smart
· 2 months ago
We also discussed this topic on our blog recently. Our angle was "The Question is Not Can You Measure Social Media ROI? It is Should You?" - http://socialsmart.wordpress.com/2009/08/03/the... If you look at the example of Dell, they are not concerned with ROI. They consider it as a service to their customers. Social media is trending towards being a CRM tool rather than a marketing/sales tool. However, I agree with the commentors who say that ROI can be measured if so desired. The key is to understand what you are measuring and to build measurement into goals and objectives before you start. The problem for a lot of companies is that they start their social media before they have a goal in mind. Objective measurement is then highly problematic.
Umar Ghumman
· 2 months ago
Well last I checked they are still working on finding a way to do check ROI. Social media presence and initiatives should be looked at as a long term investments for the brand's image and loyalty
Peter Drucker would argue that if you don't measure it, you can't manage it. I buy the argument that there is demonstrable evidence just by observing how much engagement your brand/business is having on social media, but in larger organisations there is typically a need to evidence ROI. As the engaged web matures, ROI measures will have to become part of the package.
An hypothesis - I wonder if this is because many of the companies that are making big moves into social are smaller / more nimble / less mature? Many, not all, but enough to weight the survey responses.
computer speakers
· 2 months ago
AHMM...... Its great statistics.I know that this affordable and expected one.Thanks for the statistics.
AmberNaslund
· 2 months ago
I'd actually be curious to know if the companies saying they're not measuring social media are also measuring other things (or not). What I encounter a lot are companies that simply don't know HOW to measure, mostly because they a) haven't benchmarked properly in the first place or b) don't really know how to gather the data that lines up with their goals and objectives.
Accountability is really important; the tools and resources are there to measure social media, without question. ROI can be calculated on anything you spend money on. There are whole hosts of qualitative and quantitative metrics that demonstrate impact, cost savings, revenue and revenue potential.
I'm wondering if some of the businesses that aren't measuring social might need some help measuring their traditional communications initiatives, and not just in terms of eyeball metrics. My guess is that the issue isn't isolated to social, even though that's where this survey focused.
James Stratford
· 2 months ago
Personally I'm going to look at the problem through a different set of filters. I see a couple of flags coming up which help create the buzz (which is awesome it gets people to think). The first statement regarding the survey that they have adopted social media in some way. I'll say the same thing here I've said on FriendFeed, while blog commenting, and on Twitter, but slightly different.
That you can't do something in some way in social media. Some way is never the right way! In some of these cases a company needed someone in social media and I see the PR companies as the worst offenders poised as experts when they should be one of the best examples. They don't have the experience and targeted follower base needed which can't be simulated. They don't have the understanding since it's not the same as the PR in the textbook. They like many companies aren't looking in the right place for the right person. They don't realize that in the front lines it needs to be the person with the right temperament, intellect, with a burning desire to work in that capacity. It's interesting that many times it's a well educated person who can't go to a party without talking stiff and formally. It's a different world where relevancy, transparency, authenticity, and sharing and caring matter more than the traditional. It's not the people coming to the company that make the difference it's the people coming to check out the company or their social media representative. It's that person capturing their attention, cultivating their interest, consuming their desire, and closing their action.
This generally can't be done by the favorite of the office who has been spending years climbing the corporate ladder since everyone knows their views, many times they are self centered, egotistical, and from their point of view the company owes them anyways. The truth is it may be that nice pleasant receptionist that would better serve the company than the person clawing at the ladder. The one exception to look for in your company would be the wonderful pleasant person that you couldn't promote since they wouldn't get their hands dirty. This is the one who is naturally transparent, honest, has the authenticity, caring and sharing and is there with you now.
With all that said let me move to the point. The surveys are generally put out with a slant, though most of it is awesome and it gives us great things to analyze, discuss, and ponder. The thing that's not to be missed is that part of social media is no social media. There are components that need to be utilized to optimize the use of social media. Yes it can be measurable, quantifiable, and verifiable. It isn't learned from one or 100 blog posts it's a process of setting up processes utilizing tools that are out there as well as ingenuity and thinking outside of the box. One size doesn't fit all.
One tip is that in all of the social media platforms that a company is utilizing need to have each of the contacts from the individual platforms put in a spreadsheet or database. It needs to be updated as the size of the audience increases. It can be handy to make notes on the types of topics or products that people relate to. ... Enough for now it's not a blog post.
My Two Cents @JRStratford on Twitter
Jenny
· 2 months ago
Is there a way to find ROAs on the social network companies themselves? I have a project for a business class focusing on Youtube (Google) where I need to compare financial data amoung competitors and I cannot seem to find the info I need
What economical option's are available to measure ROI?
Ron Weinberg
· 2 months ago
Just because you can measure a marketing activity such as a tweet with a link, doesn't mean it's worth doing. Raw data needs a deeper analysis to be useful and that requires resources. It took time for companies to develop financial systems and measurement tools. How can you expect companies to be so competent in a medium that had little visibility two years ago?
Marketing professionals need to get more realistic that the world can't always immediately revolve around them. We are in a recession. Companies have a multitude of challenges.
I thought social media was about conversations, not marketing campaigns.
ecentric web design
· 2 months ago
So many clients are wanting to jump on this band wagon right now, without having a clear strategy for their efforts. Part of that strategy certainly has to be a way to measure the effectiveness of any such campaign.
Julian Chacin
· 1 hour ago
One of the best ways that you can track your social media ROI is through the use of 1 800's with specific extensions. For Instance, place a campaign with a 1800'XXX-XXXX Ext 1001 for Facebook. 1800'XXX-XXXX Ext 1002 for My Space, etc...you will see which one is more effective and therefore your ROI. If you need more information you can always contact me for this service. Julian@miamicc.net... I love it!
All Comments
I have all the faith of the world and strongly believe how Social is good - but I also want to see the moniessss. It is definitely not a minor thing.
The truth is "social business techniques" media holds a stronger parallel to a friend recommending a product, or a brand service representative going the extra mile going the extra mile to leave you happy. Its serves as way to make one brand feel like a local mom and pop store and something you can brag about being a part of. The new metrics exist, but they aren't being accepted by traditional companies employing social business strategies just yet.
I have some ideas on what seems to be consistent barometers for well received campaigns, but it is yet to be seen what is adopted as the major indicators.
(In retrospect this is a bit long for a comment, I was just started typing and found myself writing about a topic that hit close to home.)
Don't get me wrong, I firmly believe in measuring the financial impact of your social media efforts and it is definately possible to measure some of the impact of social media efforts in terms of true ROI. The problem is that is very hard, if not impossible, to measure the long term effect that social media efforts can have on your brand sentiment positive or negative and how this translates to an increase or decrease of sales over time. For instance if you succeed in creating a truly charismatic brand that evokes customer loyalty and diehard evangelists, you will be able to sell more product at higher prices. How would you divide the return among the many activities and facets of your company that worked in concert to achieve this feat?
You say that "for social media and social technology to really work that businesses need to measure its impact, positive and negative", and you are right. But this needs to be done with both hard (financial) and soft (trending) measurements. The results need to be compared to benchmarks and predetermined desired outcomes; from here the strategies, tactics, methods, can be tweaked to achieve better results.
Another thing to be aware of is the the difference between a social media effort and direct marketing over a social media channel (eg. @delloutlet on twitter). The latter is simple to measure.
Yes, social media is in its infancy and the best ways to get the hard and soft measures you mention are still being figured out, but I get worried when it appears that analysis is never even part of the equation. Lots of jobs specifically for social media are cropping up, which is wonderful - but those jobs will be eliminated if companies can't produce tangible reports to see how well something is working (or not working). I worry that by not treating social media as any other aspect of a marketing or customer service or visibility venture, companies will be more inclined to just pass on direct-engagement if they don't experience an increase in sales or retentions (that might not even be directly attributable to social media, but that they could use as a feeler to credit SM).
I do agree that there need to be more tools and more information out there for businesses to track these metrics. That in and of itself is a burgeoning industry.
thanks for the reply. It seems that we are really not far from agreement. I too believe the ROI should be measured whenever possible and that is not the only measurement of value.
I think that many businesses are analyzing their social media efforts but are measuring them against desired outcomes rather than in true ROI. Is this a bad thing? Is it less valuable than measuring ROI? For some maybe, but perhaps not for those that have a deep understanding of their businesses, who understand how customer interactions at every touchpoint determine the brand, and how changes in brand sentiment affect frequency, reach, and yield.
We all must remember that social media is a disruptive technology that spans numerous
corporate silos including, marketing, pr, customer service, HR, R&D, communications and
more. Honestly, even though I believe that true ROI is measurable for well defined
social media initiatives, I am extremely skeptical when anyone tells me they can truly
measure the ROI of a broad social media effort that spans numerous corporate silos, and it is exactly these companies that are fast to move with a well concieved strategy on broad social media efforts that will be positioned to benefit the most.
We're going to see this change in the future and accountability is going to become crucial.
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/social_med...
The top companies that have always been great at tracking will lead the way in ROI tools. However, Social Media is more for online branding, exposure and managing your online reputation.
There are measurements in place such as # of followers (Twitter) and fans (Facebook). I think it is still early in the game to be as precise as Dell but there will be tools and technology that comes out besides Google Analytics to track back conversions, visits ect..
For instance, I may be in for just some buzz creation around my brand, in that case analytics and those stats might be sufficient.
If i want customer feedback, only listening tools might be sufficient and the ROI might be not even stats, just words and mentions and responses are your ROI.
In case you are looking for sales, tracking the $$$ is the ROI, just like DELL.
A restaurant/food chain might be interested to spread buzz, listen feedback and get some sales- for him analytics, $$$ and mentions are all that matter. In the words of Olivier Blanchard these are : F-R-Y (Frequency, Reach, Yield), which covers all.
So you've got to decide what aim is, and then definitely you can find your ROI. Mind you, ROI is not always in terms of $$$ but more often than not IT IS!
Here's something I wrote a few months ago, about How to Measure Your Social Media Success Benchmark: http://lorigama.wordpress.com/201
First, decide what you’re measuring. Is it quality of conversations and perceptions of your company? Or is it the numbers: traffic to your Web site, SEO ranking, number of products sold?
To measure quality, such as building better relationships with targeted groups, ask yourself:
Are we part of what these groups are talking about?
Are people talking about our company or our competitors?
Are people referring us to their friends/followers? In Twitter, you can monitor when your brand is mentioned by using Splitweet.com. Hint: this is why Social Media is a good “listening” tool–because you can simply monitor this by viewing conversations; and by using tools like SplitTweet.com that alert you when your brand has been mentioned. Google Alerts are another good way to measure because you get an e-mail alert when someone Googles your name. PeopleBrowsr (My.PeopleBrowsr.com in business mode) can help you monitor your brand and “listen” for positive and negative tweets of which you can set auto-replies that promptly respond to positive and negative comments. (Note: for authenticity’s sake, I would follow up with another response, myself, as soon as possible).
Are we providing substance and excellent customer service through our responses and conversations?
If you’re measuring quantity: Review your Web site and/or blog’s statistics to see where traffic is coming from. Specifically: check the “referrals” stat. If you don’t have a very good stat program, use Google Analytics. It’s very comprehensive and it’s free. Measuring the quantity is very easy.
Your “Success” Benchmark is the most important thing to decide on or the ROI can end up being a mysterious, unknown thing. Not good for business.
Call it as you prefer, but you should measure the return posed as a goal in your strategy: more comments, more post, better sentiment, etc.
Even if you then find the cost per each comment or each post, how do you judge it as correct or too expensive or cheap? Are you comparing it with a cost per TV TRPs?
I think that until we stay stuck with this story about Roi, we won't be able to grow as a reliable market.
I am finding it very useful for reconnecting with inactive clients I'm too embarrassed to call, as well as leads & prospects that I had eliminated long ago because they never returned my calls or responded to my emails.
I recently closed two sales that I can attribute to Facebook--the first was my cousin (SEO services), and the second, an old prospect (Joomla consulting).
Social media also keeps me up-to-date on current events and trends in my industry. This makes me more valuable to my busy clients, because instead of waiting for them to contact me with work, I'm more proactive in approaching them with ideas that will help them achieve their Internet marketing goals, which means new work for me.
http://www.seodoom.info/
As some posts touched on below, if return on investment is perhaps just to get sign-ups or viewers of specific info (i.e. a blog with no financial gain) then perhaps your measure would be only on which social media site did they come from and did they sign up? Or how long did they stay on site for?
Taking this idea a step further whether "success" for you is sign-up/a viewer/a purchase whatever you may consider to be a "conversion" then you could start to monitor how often these particular social media channelled users:
- Spend in time on site
- What does this type of customer look at? Or what are they looking for?
- How much money do they spend?
- How much profit did you make from customers in this "Social Media Channelled Category?"
- Did they advertise a link for further conversion? How many more conversions or users were forwarded form this original customer?
- Did this type of customer prefer immediate shipping or next day?
- Was this kind of customer a "clicker happy (instead of "trigger" :p)" affiliate/banner clicker?
I think it could also be useful analysis to know from the various different social media sites does.... the type of consumer/customer/reader/paying customer differ? I.e.: all the ones coming from twitter is this just a trend of perhaps what looks 'cool' a quick 'buzz' in which case you monitor and realise a sudden high increase on traffic of quick lookers whose time on the site is only 5 seconds. Compared to perhaps a facebook user who added it in there profile and the type of customer is much more committed and spends more time due to the various psychologies between the different types of social media, another example could be a link from a blog which is perhaps more of a PR stunt (again another type of psychology?) would bring a different type of customer to monitor, I think the trends per different types of social media channel would be interesting and businesses could learn a lot from it to better understand which kind of networks adds the most value to there ROI.
I'd be interest to hear others thoughts on the above.
Please note: I think the subject of psychology is a far more in depth subject than I have touched on here and I of course appreciate like myself many users have a twitter account, a facebook account, and are also subscribed to various blog platforms, and regularly use youtube, the way in which your business is communicated via these different platform is what builds a sub-psychology behind perhaps how the customer will interpret your site. For example:
A twitter user sees it’s a popular trend and clicks just out of interest as it looks like the new "cool thing to do". Or a celebrity mentions your site link, so they think wow this must be "uber" interesting!!!
A Facebook user who saw it in someones status perhaps a close friend a work colleague or sees it in a family profile so they immediately have much more trust and interest before even clicking on the site.
A youtube user saw it in a video and think it’s a really trendy video so has a vision in the mind before even reaching the site.
I think this is why it’s a very interesting area to monitor as it can open up a lot of new doors to what kind of marketing/pr is most beneficial to your business and the most appropriate strategy for influencing a customer base to your product.
Many Thanks for reading!
Darren Fox (Darrenjfox@gmail.com)
When that's done CFO goes with the bill. How to measure the impact or value add this initiative ?
The costs, always someboby can do with thumb rule and resouurse alocation ratio and about the benefits ?
Improve relations with customers, atract best people for hire, increase revenues, feedback of products and services that's improved them. Bear this in mind when the bill comes
Agree with your comment. Here's how I monitor my social media ROI:
1) Set up a Google Analytics account for your website.
2) Set up a good CRM (i.e. Salesforce, Zoho).
3) Auto-feed your contact/conversion forms into your CRM.
4) Link your social media campaigns to your website.
5) Monitor traffic and lead conversions resulting from your referring social media sites using Google Analytics.
6) Monitor your opportunities and closed opportunities from your referring social media sites using your CRM.
If you need help, contact me. I'd be happy to walk you through it.
www.brendasomich.wordpress.com
A key issue is using the right parameters to measure ROI. This is usually flawed in marketing as a whole and the same flawed approach happens in social media as well. I wrote an article called "Measuring the Value of Social Media" that discuss an appropriate approach. It can be found at http://bit.ly/hodQp. I think you will fing this useful.
Social Steve
www.socialsteve.wordpress.com
Reach - Content consumption - How many users/viewers are interacting with and consuming the blog-generated contents (posts) and consumer-generated contents (comments)?
Use Social sites Web analysis. Suggested initial target: 10% of overall unique visitors
Engagement = # of Comments / # of Posts
The amount of comments to a posting within the blog
Agency monitoring: Suggested target 1:5 ratio
Influence Share of influence - Positive vs negative sentiment of comments
Agency monitoring: This really depends on your product but 35% positive
50% Neutral 15% negative might be a good target
Search Results = Search results based on keywords
Internal check at end of campaign
% 1st page results on selected keywords
It’s all about who can shot the loudest these days… The good example of Wikipedia. An established globally recognised professor in the Environment was thrown out of the site because he disagreed with an individual about global warming who had no expertise in the subject. One wonders what company he was working for…
Just thought I might start a little debate….
http://www.turningnewsintoknowledge.com/2009/09...
That being said, relating social media involvement back to business goals should be the first thing any company does before creating a twitter account, FB page or whatever else. However, it's understandable (though not necessarily acceptable) that many just want to dive right in because of all the hype.
If you want to look at drives to your site and such, Google Analytics is an easy win.
I think it's also really important to look at the buzz about your brand and not just your campaigns. I like Radian6 for that.
Are you trying to sell more products online? You track the increase of products sold and referring URLs.
Are you trying to manage your brand reputation? You track sentiment and mentions.
Are you trying to increase awareness of your brand? You track mentions and followers.
Are you trying to gather feedback? You track mentions.
Obviously I'm being vague here but there is no one right answer. You have to find what makes sense for your brand and what is important to you and create your own ROI.
Sites like Facebook, linkedIn, and Twitter are great but remember, their usefulness as a 'sales and marketing' tool is only a byproduct of people wishing it to be so. These tools weren't conceived or built with marketing as the primary objective which is why everyone's playing the "What's the return?" game.
hmmmmm... someday someone will develop a network with a focus on sales and tracking.
best,
Christopher O.
@ReferralKey
"Your Trusted Referral Network"
An hypothesis - I wonder if this is because many of the companies that are making big moves into social are smaller / more nimble / less mature? Many, not all, but enough to weight the survey responses.
Its great statistics.I know that this affordable and expected one.Thanks for the statistics.
Accountability is really important; the tools and resources are there to measure social media, without question. ROI can be calculated on anything you spend money on. There are whole hosts of qualitative and quantitative metrics that demonstrate impact, cost savings, revenue and revenue potential.
I'm wondering if some of the businesses that aren't measuring social might need some help measuring their traditional communications initiatives, and not just in terms of eyeball metrics. My guess is that the issue isn't isolated to social, even though that's where this survey focused.
That you can't do something in some way in social media. Some way is never the right way! In some of these cases a company needed someone in social media and I see the PR companies as the worst offenders poised as experts when they should be one of the best examples. They don't have the experience and targeted follower base needed which can't be simulated. They don't have the understanding since it's not the same as the PR in the textbook. They like many companies aren't looking in the right place for the right person. They don't realize that in the front lines it needs to be the person with the right temperament, intellect, with a burning desire to work in that capacity. It's interesting that many times it's a well educated person who can't go to a party without talking stiff and formally. It's a different world where relevancy, transparency, authenticity, and sharing and caring matter more than the traditional. It's not the people coming to the company that make the difference it's the people coming to check out the company or their social media representative. It's that person capturing their attention, cultivating their interest, consuming their desire, and closing their action.
This generally can't be done by the favorite of the office who has been spending years climbing the corporate ladder since everyone knows their views, many times they are self centered, egotistical, and from their point of view the company owes them anyways. The truth is it may be that nice pleasant receptionist that would better serve the company than the person clawing at the ladder. The one exception to look for in your company would be the wonderful pleasant person that you couldn't promote since they wouldn't get their hands dirty. This is the one who is naturally transparent, honest, has the authenticity, caring and sharing and is there with you now.
With all that said let me move to the point. The surveys are generally put out with a slant, though most of it is awesome and it gives us great things to analyze, discuss, and ponder. The thing that's not to be missed is that part of social media is no social media. There are components that need to be utilized to optimize the use of social media. Yes it can be measurable, quantifiable, and verifiable. It isn't learned from one or 100 blog posts it's a process of setting up processes utilizing tools that are out there as well as ingenuity and thinking outside of the box. One size doesn't fit all.
One tip is that in all of the social media platforms that a company is utilizing need to have each of the contacts from the individual platforms put in a spreadsheet or database. It needs to be updated as the size of the audience increases. It can be handy to make notes on the types of topics or products that people relate to. ... Enough for now it's not a blog post.
My Two Cents
@JRStratford on Twitter
What economical option's are available to measure ROI?
Marketing professionals need to get more realistic that the world can't always immediately revolve around them. We are in a recession. Companies have a multitude of challenges.
I thought social media was about conversations, not marketing campaigns.