I’m really passionate about measuring and proving Social media Return On Investment (Social Media ROI). If you can show how much money your social media is making (or saving) your business you can commit your efforts to it with confidence.
I think now that most people in business suspect that there’s some value in being involved in the social media space…but that’s not the same thing as KNOWING.
Tying back the actually money you’ve made to your social media efforts will also help identify if they are more of the same customers or an entirely new kind. It will help you spot whether they’re worth more or less than other customers and more importantly how this success can be replicated again, and again, and again.
Knowing how effective your social media is for your business should be a matter of hygiene. Because social media, like all marketing disciplines, is about dealing with other people, you can’t ever KNOW how they will react to what you say. But unlike most other marketing, with social media you can see in real-time…and change what you do or say according to the feedback. But you have to be listening and measuring to know how people are reacting.
Measure everything even if you don’t think you need it! Tie all data back to stuff you already know…or should do. If you know how many visitors your website gets, and you know how many customers that generates then you should be able to know how many new visitors you need to send to the site via Twitter (for example) in order to get one new customer – see here for more detail.
You might need to tweak the equations (or if you have some statistical analysis experience work out the SD and think about how many step you need to consider to refine the results) but either way, this is a start and should enable you to begin working out how much money you’re making.
Most common mistake people make is thinking that ROI is measured in followers, retweets or comments…it isn’t. ROI is measured in £s.
TIP: Subscribe to a low-cost reporting package such as Hootsuite, Sprout or 20feet and have a look at the neatly graphed results for your social media efforts.
For me, this is one of the most exciting areas of social media consultancy. The fact that you can see how your marketing is working in real time is brilliant because you can make changes instantly to keep your campaigns on track.
Putting in place a structure to tie together Analytics, social media monitoring and measurement in a simple package which clearly highlights successes and areas that need attention is very rewarding. Referencing this data against other key marketing information means that I can help to prove the return on investment based on £ rather than followers, comments or any other nebulous measures of social success. If you would like to talk about this or would like to book me as a social media speaker or trainer to talk to your marketing department, please get in touch.