One of the best parts of social media marketing is that it’s measurable. I’m always surprised to hear from business leaders who don’t match their objectives with metrics so they can track social media ROI (Return on Investment).
If this sounds like you, welcome! Grab a cup, take the load off your feet and read on. I promise it’s worth it.
Defining the right social media metrics is key to meeting each business objective.
Two factors weigh heavily in computing Social Media ROI: Metrics and Costs.
Metrics should not be confused with costs.
- Costs are anything invested to improve the growth of a business.
- Metrics are numbers that tell you important information about your results.
Many companies neglect to measure and analyze each cost (investment) associated with social media marketing:
- Attention (there’s a reason it’s called “paying attention”)
- Labor/Human Resources
- Financial
- Training
- Organizational development
- Social technology
- Agencies and/or consultants
- Paid media (such as Facebook ads)
- Employee engagement
One accurate measurement is worth a thousand expert opinions.
I’ll admit that tracking the right metrics to determine ROI is challenging. With real-time data providing cues to re-work your strategy, a restructure of the company’s organizational framework may be in order. If you’re not in a position to regularly analyze your marketing results, it’s crucial to designate someone who is.
A marketing team’s comfort in working with data and analytics is crucial. Tracking the right metrics is important and so is knowing what to do once you have the data, especially when things aren’t going as planned. A deeper dive with a social media audit will often uncover missed opportunities.
Measuring metrics and analyzing results is formidable and requires careful consideration so your investments are protected. I’ve had clients try enlisting their office managers for this but few have achieved optimal, workable solutions.
Determining ROI is often in an office manager’s wheelhouse. Yet, due to the unique nature of the data, and the social aspect of the medium, office managers are rarely suited to determine success. It requires experiential knowledge to make your metrics meaningful.
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5 top business objectives + metrics to measure Social Media ROI
Each of these business objectives can be achieved through social media marketing. Tracking and auditing the results is most beneficial when you know the right metrics to measure.
Objective 1: Retain Current Customers
- Reach. Reach is an important social metric for all your business objectives. However, by reaching existing customers, it’s far easier to sell to them than it is to strangers.
- Engagement (comments, likes, shares, retweets). Engagement is the kingpin of everything social.
- Reviews. Customers do not consume in silence. What common words or themes are customers saying?
- Return traffic from social media. How are you tracking visitors to your site? What tactics are you using to engage them on an ongoing basis?
Objective 2: Reach New Potential Customers
- Increase in likes/followers. Is there a specific plan to increase your audience?
- New opt-ins from social media. Are you offering valuable information at no-charge in exchange for contact info?
- New Group members. Many companies choose to leverage Facebook and LinkedIn groups to attract new customers.
- Customer acquisition. How many, at what cost, over what period of time?
- Audience demographics. Are the people you’re reaching actually your target customers?
Objective 3: Improve Customer Satisfaction
- Responsiveness to messages and reviews. Everyone likes to be heard. Responses also give prospective customers a glimpse of how you handle concerns, issues and questions.
- Response time. 42% of social customers expect a response time within 60 minutes. Is your business prepared to handle social media inquires within the hour?
- Online reviews. What are the company’s practices for building a successful review funnel?
- Negative feedback (reviews, hide posts, unlike page, unfollows). How is this handled within the organization?
Objective 4: Establish Earned Authority and Trust
- Traffic and time on site from social media. Social signals let Google know your site is being talked about. Hopefully, there’s a live human managing your social channels to keep the engagement high.
- Links to your site from social media. When social signals turn into social shares, further value comes into play. People share good content and link to your site. Social media then becomes a huge win for SEO.
- Amplification (shares and retweets by others). Evidence that your content resonates. Sharing provides social proof.
- Opt-ins for “free” content. One of the best ways to develop trust and build your email list is to offer valuable information at no-charge in exchange for customer’s email address. Are you testing which content is getting the most opt-ins?
- Video views. How much time did people spend viewing your video? How many watched it all the way through?
- Attendance in Webinars. Who engaged? How many stayed until the end?
Objective 5: Increase Sales
- Facebook ad spend vs results. Did each ad achieve its intended goal?
- Facebook ad Relevance. How did your offer resonate with the intended audience?
- Organic vs Paid engagement. Are your posts resonating with your audience before you pay to promote them?
- Growth of audience who visited your site from social. Which campaigns brought the most visitors?
- Leads. Are you tracking with landing pages and lead forms?
- Conversions. Sales from social or with a social media “assist.”
- Revenue generated. What is your monthly revenue from social media efforts?
In Conclusion…
Determining the costs and tracking the right metrics will provide the data to measure social media ROI. With the optimal processes in place, your marketing decisions will become better informed and ultimately, more successful.
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