The Future of Social Media Measuremernt

Tracy Panko@TracyPanko

@spiral16

Social Media Isn’t a Fad.

• An average of 900,000 blog posts a day

• 4-6 million tweets an hour on average

• Over 30 billion pieces of content (videos, notes, status updates, pages) shared on Facebook in a month

It’s here to stay.

Social Media Isn’t Free.

It takes valuable time.

You need human resources for:

PlanningCreative insight Content creationProduct managementMeasurement Monitoring…and more.

What Does ROI Mean?ROI = (Gain from Investment) - (Cost of Investment)                     Cost of Investment                                    

 

Return on investment is a popular metric because of its versatility and simplicity.  It is challenging to define gains and costs when measuring ROI for social media efforts.

There is no way to calculate social media ROI

with a one-size-fits-all equation.

                                    

 

Image from glynndevins.com -- and modified

ROI deals with money invested and money gained—it’s a financial metric.

That financial aspect is not clearly defined in social media—it’s not built-in.

                                    

 

Why is it Difficult?

Have clearly defined business objectives before

you start.

Make sure your social media initiatives (nonfinancial)

are supporting your business goals (financial)

                                    

 

THE MOST IMPORTANT THING TO REMEMBER

Process begins with Goals

Increase Total Sales

Reduce Customer Service Expenses

Reduced Cost Per Transaction

Increase in Qualified Leads

Higher Value Per Sale

Increase in Customer Satisfaction

Increase in Total Transactions

Introduce New Products/Service Enhancements

Increase in Number of Operating Locations/Retail Outlets

Attract New Employees

Encourage Repeat Purchases

 

Common Social Media Tools 

 

 

  

• Twitter• Facebook/MySpace• Blogs • Forums• YouTube• Foursquare/Gowalla• Flicker• Webinars• Podcasts

Which tool fits your business goals?

Common Metrics 

 

 

  

Frequency and volume of:• Twitter followers• Retweets• Facebook likes• Brand mentions • Blog comments• YouTube views• Number of check-ins

Are these things important?

Ask yourself which ones matter to your business.

Evaluate Traditional with Online Metrics

• Actual sales• Retail traffic• # of transactions• New customers• Amount per transaction• Site visitors• Time spent on webpage• Conversion stats

• Positive/negative sentiment• Message reach• Volume of conversation• Relevancy• Frequency• Linkages• Comments• Clickthrus

Timeline• Did you see spikes in sales in correlation with your

social media efforts?

• What other patterns

can you identify?

Social Media Metrics

67% - Increase in monthly sales leads for companies that blog over companies that don't blog.

  434% - Increase in web pages

indexed by Google for companies that blog over companies that don't blog.

Why Does This Matter to Your Business? Source: Data from over 1,500 small businesses - http://bit.ly/XDkQV

43% of US Companies Will Be Blogging by 2012

- eMarketer

Social Media Metrics

Companies with more indexed pages on Googl, ,aooo an, and nnnn generate more sales leads. Every 50 to 100 incremental indexed pages can mean double-digit lead growth.

Growth in new leads accelerates significantly once websites achieve 300+ pages indexed by Google.

Social Media Metrics

Leads by Indexed Web Pages

Source: State of Inbound Marketing Lead Generation Report - http://bit.ly/cVMpkn

Social Media Metrics

Social Media is for Leads and Sales

Source: State of Inbound Marketing Report - http://bit.ly/aewfHr

Blogging More Often Drives Results

Source: State of Inbound Marketing Report - http://bit.ly/aewfHr

Fostering CommunityThe US Navy’s Facebook page acts as a bridge between• Active Duty, Reservist, and Navy

Civilians• Family and friends of Navy personnel• Veterans and former Navy employees• Potential recruits• Navy enthusiasts

Which results in…ROI• 7-20K Facebook interactions• 500-700 Twitter mentions• 2,500-3,000 visits to the NavyLive blog• 10-15K referrals to Navy.mil

“Managing Audience Engagement to Gain and Retain Public Involvement” - CDR Scott McIlnay (2010)

Per week.

Example Goal to ROI

Example Goal to ROI

Goal - Predict opening weekend revenue to increase net profit per movie

12 months before new movie released - Began traditional and social media promotions for new movie

During that 12-month time period - Measured the volume of online chatter, website traffic and statistics, and sentiment

On the opening night of the movie - Listened to online chatter - how much, where, about whom, positive or negative, website traffic, and statistics

Example Goal to ROI

Gain - Ability to adjust promotions to increase revenue and developed a matrix to determine how long to keep the movies in the theater across the country based on social metrics as well as sales data

Costs - Monitoring tool, website metrics tool, staff time to develop campaigns and evaluate the data

ROI - Increase in net profit per movie of 5-7%

Company Goal: Win Retail Licensing Program

Background: 20-year hunting and fishing TV show

Needed to expand their brand association with general outdoor adventure to attract large retailers

Example Goal to ROI

Tactics• Developed an outdoor adventure site to promote outdoor

recreation activities

• Identified influencers in targeted communities like hiking,

mountain biking, snow shoeing, bird watching and sent

targeted messages about their brand

• Started a blog and included stories about outdoor

adventure activities

• Began tweeting about specific outdoor recreational

activities while shooting TV shows

 

Example Goal to ROI

AO measured word association with their brand and saw the new words such as adventure, outdoor, activities, experts, professional, training show up in their semantic cloud.

AO illustrated the overwhelmingly positive sentiment associated with their brand and did competitive research on targeted retail

brands to compare their sentiment. 

AO ultimately shared this data with the retailer and earned a licensed goods program worth several million dollars over three years – identified their overall costs of social media

efforts including listening, engaging and measuring as $25,000.

GainsExample Goal to ROI

Conclusion1. Identify your business’s overall goals

and objectives

2. Determine how the social media initiatives/tactics apply to the Business Goals

3. Assign metrics to each tactic to evaluate successes and failures/ways to improve

4. Correlate the social media metrics with the traditional metrics to confirm you are supporting the overall goals of the business (timeline)