I would completely agree with this - as a Community Manager purely focussed on building communities, communicating with our desired audience and watching brand reputation... this is something that comes up at a weekly basis.
Other factors to be considered are the culture of your site, whether the users are behaving in the way that you intended and the general feel amongst the community - which isn't always something that can have a number put to it.
This is the difficulty being faced by larger or more traditional companies. The smaller or newer companies that realise it's not always measurable are more often than not always the ones doing it right, because their intentions are genuine.
Sommer-Green and Clean Mo m
· 1 year ago
Great post. I think that PR firms and companies want the hardline for advertising dollars. Stats and so forth but qualitative is very important. For my business I look more towards the qualitative side because if not, I can get lost in what ranking I have or visits. Focusing on the qualitative seems to bring up the quantitative.
Hilarye
· 1 year ago
Thanks for the post- working in the PR world clients want to be able to see the value that results from thier budgets. In the past we would use the literal value of how much the placement would cost in terms to advertising dollars. It comes with educating our clients that public relations is more than dollars and cents but more of the value -that this post brings up- of engagement and allowing consumers to express thier opinions and interact with others. These are great things that I can use when figuring out ROI for my clients- thanks!
Stephanie Frasco
· 1 year ago
This is a great post! Thanks! I think it is important for clients to set your goal first. What do they want to acheive and then you can measure it a bit better.
It also depends on what type of company? Is it a online site, community site, or is it an offline business?
As an infuencer/word of mouth marketer I like to look how much sharing is going on within a site. It gives you a good idea on how much engagement is going on within the site. I like to look at the number of referring sources. Are they increasing? What medium are people using to share or talk about the site? If you see an increase in total sources you should watch that trend closer and with the right data you could argue that word of mouth marketing is working as more people have access to the site. Another thing to look at is the ratio of outreach vs. postings.
Mike Moir
· 1 year ago
Great Post...
I love the that we are getting more precise on analyzing and tracking the social phenom.
One other thing I wanted to add, using "user surveys" across a random sampling across your web touch points, can help to measure the qualitative areas that you mention. ROI is both a hard and soft metric so, surveys can help to better grasp the soft areas.
And no, I don't work for a survey company, but would be happy to help anyone that has a need to measure social impact.
Sav
· 1 year ago
This is a great post. I wish more corporate execs would accept this reality and start to plan budget accordingly. The hard fact that no matter what you do, costs time and money is the challenge that needs to be faced. If every dollar spent needs to have a rate of return associated with it, then this measurement is forced upon the teams whether its possible or not.
The Groudswell book by Forrester Research does a great job of listing out some simple calculations of estimating costs and benefits of typical social media activities. They have 65 case studies in that book and at least 10/12 of them have dollars associated with it. Great resource.
Great post. As a social media marketer, this is a question in which clients aren't ready to hear the real answers for - and that is: measurement is going to include qualitative, and quantitative is still evolving.
I hope marketers read this post and start to form social media campaigns with this in mind.
Alex
· 1 year ago
Measuring social media ROI is not that different than measuring any other dynamic initiative. It can and should be done. And there is no reason it cannot be done.
I find that there are usually three problems with measurement systems. 1)Failure to establish clear top level objects 2)Lack of a framework that links top level goals with actions and results. 3) Failure estimate and track costs/investment well.
Without the first two the R in ROI is totally ambiguous and without the third the I in ROI is totally ambiguous.
Problem 1 is usually caused by top level management not taking the time to define and/or communicate the top level objectives in ways the rest of the organization can understand. Without these top level goals it becomes hard to pinpoint what really matters. If top level mgmt has not done it's homework then talk of ROI is usually just a smoke screen to avoid doing anything.
Problem 2 is harder to do, but it can be done with the right methodology of breaking top level goals into lower level goals and ultimately to smart measures.
Problem 3 requires systems to capture investment and to evaluate estimates.
All of this can and should be done if you really care about ROI.
Beth Kanter
· 1 year ago
Thanks for this post - good information. I agree that you need both qualitative and quantitative information - the qualitative is really important for learning and improvement of social media strategy.
I organized a panel for nonprofits called "Social Media ROI Case Study Slam" four nonprofits presented their approaches to considering ROI. You might find these of interest. http://socialmediametrics.wikispaces.com/ntc2008
This post is an excellent addition to the wiki too - thanks
Fireant
· 1 year ago
Great post.
Axel Schultze
· 9 months ago
The Social Media Academy developed a way to calculate ROI on social media. http://www.socialmediatoday.com/SMC/77179 We are now all interested in a broad response and feedback. Let us know what you think. Thanks a lot.
Axel Schultze
· 9 months ago
The Social Media Academy developed a way to calculate ROI on social media. http://www.socialmediatoday.com/SMC/77179 We are now all interested in a broad response and feedback. Let us know what you think. Thanks a lot.
Craig Oda
· 9 months ago
Nice article. I wrote another perspective today about how the ROI measurement for social media is really important in this tough economy. http://mediaroi.notlong.com
Ric Dragon
· 7 months ago
Success metric before engagement? Perhaps its enough to trust in the philosophy of Social Media - and trust in the fact that its just necessary for today for most businesses. And that to do it, is to be ready for the opportunities that will naturally arise.
Here's another idea of how to track the success of specific social media sites.
How about creating separate landing pages at your website for your Facebook friends, sort of a "Welcome Facebook Friends" page. You can create another for people who follow you on Twitter. And another for your connections on LinkedIn, etc. Then check the analytics and see which site is brining in the most traffic and resulting in opt-ins or conversions.
Jesus
· 6 months ago
Very interesting stuff!
olivierBlanchard
· 3 months ago
Aaron... I am not sure why everyone seems to want to redefine the what and how of ROI when it comes to social media. It's pretty simple stuff. 1. ROI is media-agnostic. It's arrived at the same way whether you are looking at social media, advertising, headcount or a new server bank. Check this out:
All Comments
Other factors to be considered are the culture of your site, whether the users are behaving in the way that you intended and the general feel amongst the community - which isn't always something that can have a number put to it.
This is the difficulty being faced by larger or more traditional companies. The smaller or newer companies that realise it's not always measurable are more often than not always the ones doing it right, because their intentions are genuine.
It also depends on what type of company? Is it a online site, community site, or is it an offline business?
As an infuencer/word of mouth marketer I like to look how much sharing is going on within a site. It gives you a good idea on how much engagement is going on within the site. I like to look at the number of referring sources. Are they increasing? What medium are people using to share or talk about the site? If you see an increase in total sources you should watch that trend closer and with the right data you could argue that word of mouth marketing is working as more people have access to the site. Another thing to look at is the ratio of outreach vs. postings.
I love the that we are getting more precise on analyzing and tracking the social phenom.
One other thing I wanted to add, using "user surveys" across a random sampling across your web touch points, can help to measure the qualitative areas that you mention. ROI is both a hard and soft metric so, surveys can help to better grasp the soft areas.
And no, I don't work for a survey company, but would be happy to help anyone that has a need to measure social impact.
The Groudswell book by Forrester Research does a great job of listing out some simple calculations of estimating costs and benefits of typical social media activities. They have 65 case studies in that book and at least 10/12 of them have dollars associated with it. Great resource.
http://www.forrester.com/Groundswell
Sav
I hope marketers read this post and start to form social media campaigns with this in mind.
I find that there are usually three problems with measurement systems. 1)Failure to establish clear top level objects 2)Lack of a framework that links top level goals with actions and results. 3) Failure estimate and track costs/investment well.
Without the first two the R in ROI is totally ambiguous and without the third the I in ROI is totally ambiguous.
Problem 1 is usually caused by top level management not taking the time to define and/or communicate the top level objectives in ways the rest of the organization can understand. Without these top level goals it becomes hard to pinpoint what really matters. If top level mgmt has not done it's homework then talk of ROI is usually just a smoke screen to avoid doing anything.
Problem 2 is harder to do, but it can be done with the right methodology of breaking top level goals into lower level goals and ultimately to smart measures.
Problem 3 requires systems to capture investment and to evaluate estimates.
All of this can and should be done if you really care about ROI.
I organized a panel for nonprofits called "Social Media ROI Case Study Slam" four nonprofits presented their approaches to considering ROI. You might find these of interest.
http://socialmediametrics.wikispaces.com/ntc2008
This post is an excellent addition to the wiki too - thanks
We are now all interested in a broad response and feedback. Let us know what you think. Thanks a lot.
We are now all interested in a broad response and feedback. Let us know what you think. Thanks a lot.
How about creating separate landing pages at your website for your Facebook friends, sort of a "Welcome Facebook Friends" page. You can create another for people who follow you on Twitter. And another for your connections on LinkedIn, etc. Then check the analytics and see which site is brining in the most traffic and resulting in opt-ins or conversions.
http://www.slideshare.net/thebrandbuilder/olivi...