subject: How do you measure ROI in Social Media Marketing? [print this page] One of digital marketing's big selling points is that it is completely measurable. The same is true for social media, although calculating ROI can be a little more challenging in this channel than in others.
On channels like pay per click, search engine optimisation and email marketing, for example, the metrics to track and measure your goals are a little more obvious. In many instances, these goals are defined by clicks, sign-ups or purchases. This is more of a hard-sell and direct marketing approach.
Social media, on the other hand, is not a medium that lends itself to shameless punting of products. To gauge value here, brands have to consider return on engagement, rather than return on investment.
This may sound rather fluffy, so I will rephrase it. It's important to make a distinction between conversions and conversations.
This is the key difference between social media marketing and traditional push marketing. Social media is all about conversations. Bear in mind that this is an attention economy, and nobody has to listen to you. Social media marketing takes a soft-sell approach, and you need to give your community a sense of value so that they have an incentive to interact with you and your brand.
This does mean that it can take longer for members of your community to convert into customers.
Frequently conversions from social media marketing efforts are quite indirect, making them harder to track. The real value is that, if you manage these relationships properly and build up a good rapport with the contacts in your social networks, your brand is bound to reap the rewards of vocal brand ambassadors and general social media good will.
"But where is the tangible value then?", I hear you ask.
It's there, don't worry. And social media metrics and be specified. When defining which metrics are going to be important, you have to first decide what it is you want to measure. These are your goals essentially.
Marketing goals
Do you want to increase traffic to your site? Improve brand positioning? Reach new customers? These are all marketing goals which can easily be measured in social media marketing.
Utilising an analytics solution (like Google Analytics) will allow you to segment where your visitors come from. This means you can easily ascertain which visits are coming from social media sources, as well as what they're doing on your website.
Other metrics to consider when trying to measure engagement could be things like the number of comments on a post, interaction on your Facebook wall, new "followers" or "friends" or the number of times a tweet was retweeted. These are all measures of how effectively you are engaging with people, and how interesting they find your content.
Product and customer service goals
Social media is particularly effective if it is incorporated as part of your business' broader CRM (customer relationship management) strategy.
Here you are able to gauge customer sentiment about your products and services, and perhaps solicit advice from customers about what they'd like from your products and services. This type of market research can help to steer your brand's product offerings in the right direction, and it gives you a good idea of how your brand is currently perceived.
Questions and queries can also be addressed in real time, making customers feel more connected to the brand. This is an important part of CRM, but it does require a cohesive strategy and communication between your marketing and sales teams to ensure that customers receive an integrated and seamless experience with your brand.
In addition to driving potential product and service development, feedback from social media channels can also inform your organic marketing strategy. This can include anything from providing more lateral ideas for keywords for which to optimise your site, to informing your content strategy based on what your customers are looking for.
When correctly implemented and administrated, a social media marketing strategy can be a valuable part of any business' holistic marketing strategy. It's important to remember that people are talking about your brand right now, regardless of whether you are there or not. Do you know what they're saying?
