Mashable - The Social Media Guide - Latest Comments in HOW TO: Measure Social Media ROI

Re: HOW TO: Measure Social Media ROI

kathyherrmann — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 14:35:25 -0000

Christina,

Thanks for your article.

We all need to remember the purpose of social business initiatives (including social media outreach). It's the same goal as every other corporate initiative. To make money.

Most companies are opportunity rich but resource limited. Thus, economic analysis of the field of opportunity for corporate initiatives is a must. The analysis gives execs the insight they need to select the best initiatives to invest in...those that are forecast to provide the highest value.

Execs will embrace social business initiatives much faster when and if a satisfactory economic value can be demonstrated -- and is shown to be higher than other potential intiatives.

Most of the valuation discussion for social media focuses on ROI. However, economic analysis is built on 3 planks - Cash flow analysis, Net Present Value (NPV), and Return on Investment (ROI).

Cash flow gives execs insight into expected out-of-pocket gains and costs. It tells them whether they can afford to foot the bill for a corporate initiative.

Metrics come into play by providing the feedstock for determining gains and costs.

It's a difficult way to compare a field of investments though, and doesn't take into account risk. That's where NPV comes into play. It brings the cash flow back to a single point by applying a risk factor.

Then ROI provides the final insight into valuation by providing a percentage return.

Social business valuation is an area I'm passionate about. Folks wanting more information (seminars, eSeries, and valuation tool) can find it here.

http://pathlightsolutions.com

Social Media ROI for Small Businesses

Re: HOW TO: Measure Social Media ROI

Dr Dave — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 08:50:44 -0000

Fantastic article. This is basically a down and dirty how-to action guide with all the resources and links. I agree with Andrew in the comments. I was at BlogWorld last year and this would have been exactly what I was searching to hear, but never did.

Keep it coming.

Dave Hale

Re: HOW TO: Measure Social Media ROI

henrylow — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 08:32:30 -0000

Often we forget the little guy, the SMB, in our discussions of the comings and goings of the Internet marketing industry. Sure there are times like this when a report surfaces talking about their issues and concerns but, for the most part, we like to talk about big brands and how they do the Internet marketing thing well or not so well.

www.onlineuniversalwork.com

Re: HOW TO: Measure Social Media ROI

Shikhvarger — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 15:39:14 -0000

Christina, the topic is extremely challenging. At the end of the day, there is not one answer and no one can provide one way. But offering the tools and outlining methodologies in broad strokes is all one can do so thank you!

Re: HOW TO: Measure Social Media ROI

alena01 — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 02:13:08 -0000

I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don't know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.

Alena

http://smallbusinessgrant.info

Re: HOW TO: Measure Social Media ROI

We network — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 15:30:05 -0000

try a service called print friendly...

http://www.printfriendly.com

Re: HOW TO: Measure Social Media ROI

clovismcpony — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 10:36:17 -0000

Loved the presentation.

Re: HOW TO: Measure Social Media ROI

Honey Singh — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 19:11:52 -0000

I personally liked bit.ly, socialtoo, Xinureturns, Socialmention, Blogpulse, PostRank, ViralHeat and Broadtracker. These tools helps in social media tracking and analytics.
Mentioned here: http://www.honeytechblog.co...

Yeah, "Without an Analytics we can't predict about ROI" and even if you the ROI without goals, calculations and analysis then its your good luck. :P

Re: HOW TO: Measure Social Media ROI

Steve Redden — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 17:24:52 -0000

Great article.

I agree that there are definitely two metrics when measuring your social media marketing activities. The first is online reputation tracking and how your business/products are perceived online and the other is ROI.

Unfortunately, most budget holders want to measure dollar spent/dollar gained and that's a reality of running a business.

We set out to meet this requirement and have built a web-based ROI tool called smtrac (http://smtrac.com), which enables you to centralise the management and reporting of your marketing activities over social media applications, websites, email campaigns, blogs and even printed collateral.

Re: HOW TO: Measure Social Media ROI

Sheryl Lindsell-Roberts — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 14:47:09 -0000

Christina, Great article! May I use your section "Define Clear Goals" in my new book "Communicating in the 21st Century Workplace," which will be published by Houghton Mifflin. If so, please check me out on www.sherylwrites.com which has my contact information.

Re: HOW TO: Measure Social Media ROI

navahhochstein — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 10:33:44 -0000

Really, Really cool presentation

Re: HOW TO: Measure Social Media ROI

Julia G — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 11:21:17 -0000

This article is extremely helpful - I appreciate that you compiled this data into a concise presentation. Thanks!

Re: HOW TO: Measure Social Media ROI

David Liem — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 01:01:05 -0000

I'm just amazed at how many different tools there are to measure social engagement. I wonder when will GA integrate social media tracking...

Re: HOW TO: Measure Social Media ROI

cbemerine — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 02:04:29 -0000

What no mention of A/B testing? Interesting article none the less.

Re: HOW TO: Measure Social Media ROI

dwiliams — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 21:35:10 -0000

The issue of ROI must be first and foremost be tied to the financial bottom line this will force social media companies to be accountable and maybe we will start seeing some profitable companies.

Re: HOW TO: Measure Social Media ROI

Simon — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 23:23:25 -0000

In the keynote of Avinash Kaushik, there`s also a lot of useful insight about analytics and new tools already out there :)

http://www.clicktrue.biz/bl...

Re: HOW TO: Measure Social Media ROI

Buzz Bishop — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 11:20:06 -0000

Social media ROI is easy to measure. You measure it one customer at a time.

http://www.cyberbuzz.com/20...

Re: HOW TO: Measure Social Media ROI

Stu Rader — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 20:06:11 -0000

With regards to snesareva's comment - I think that if you want to talk "broad" scales, its a mish-mash BUT, drilling through to the individual analyticfor a single company or individual takes a little set up, but is not that hard. i.e.:To build a custom widget that crosses the social networks with an embedded tracking ID such as I depict here http://img199.yfrog.com/i/6... and some back up data on a metrics series I'm producing, here - http://bit.ly/1z6KHQ We're using Gigya as our platform of choice and implementing the wildfire technology for the actual metric, this, with our own unique flash objects authored in house. Exciting stuff when you think about something you could actually attach to KPI's because of even more powerful "event" firing/tracking.

Re: HOW TO: Measure Social Media ROI

timfielding — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 11:42:54 -0000

There should by now be a standardized set of KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) for determining the impact/ROI of advertising (or whatever you want to call it) on Social Media. It's not only about where people are spending their attention these days, it is about how and what they doing when they are there, that needs to be quantified, relative to impact on sales and brand value. Like, Repeat Visits, Shared Video, Emailed Friend - how much does each of these build attention and reinforce messages, compared to a basic ad impression?
From what I have read so far of all the comments, there seems to be a distinct lack of consensus about KPIs. I hope your "What Do You Think?" invitation to comment leads to Mashable crowdsourcing some kind of standard set of metric tools. I have had a go at doing this for mobile ads - see "Mobile Analytics for Monkeys" on www.riverphonic.com. Early days yet, but necessary steps. If media investors can't figure out their ROI, they are less likely to spend the money. Best regards, Tim

Re: HOW TO: Measure Social Media ROI

johngreatwall — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 21:22:23 -0000

People hope that I can impart knowledge, and easy living
i hava some media part here http://www.top-battery.com.au/

Re: HOW TO: Measure Social Media ROI

bharatclick.com — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 07:07:16 -0000

very nice article.

Thank you
http://BharatClick.com

Re: HOW TO: Measure Social Media ROI

Jonathan Roye — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 02:58:07 -0000

This is great. Amazing work.

Re: HOW TO: Measure Social Media ROI

Stu Rader — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 22:30:16 -0000

Deeper even than monitoring a blog or site with the tools listed, are the analytic derived from using Widgets as a real time gauge of activity. Of course, this is in addition to the great tools you report on here and not intended to replace any, just enhance.

For instance, with the proper AS3 code installed, we track our #Gigya Wildfire wrapped flash objects across over 70 social and bookmarking sites. The widgets drive incredible amounts of traffic to blogs and sites when deployed correctly. All you have to do after coding and deployment is have 3 windows open. Tweetdeck is good, the Gigya real time reporting window and your site stats tool.

As you tweet or drop a link into Facebook or elsewhere, you see the metrics evolve minute by minute. Most social experts/marketers are just starting to see this powerful set of tools because us developers spent this year getting our head around how it could be rapidly deployed by non technical staff. We are there now.

Gigya overtook the market this year with excess of 30M views per month. At 12flat (our developer site) and DMS Communications we strongly sense the need for "Social Marketers" to start using this technology and it's inherent (analytic) punch. Companies marketing departments need assignments for staff to spend a few hours per day on the network itself, or to outsource the conversations to an available expert.

I thoroughly enjoyed this post. Well done.

Re: HOW TO: Measure Social Media ROI

mytweetmark — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 17:39:53 -0000

Great article. ROI should be measured in various ways. Nowadays, in traditional social networks, you could measure ROI not only by amount of registrations but also by amount of content. Measure the increase/decrease with revenue.

Cheers,
www.mytweetmark.com

Re: HOW TO: Measure Social Media ROI

Jayne85 — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 21:08:15 -0000

Check out this cool photo tagging software called Fotobounce! It can help you sort your images using face recognition! It can also download & tag your photos from facebook & flickr! You can get it for free at: http://fotobounce.com/index...