Measuring Online Social Presence & Social Media ROI

One of the first topics discussed in IMC 642: Web Metric & SEO was how web analytics could help a business measure the impact of its online social presence.  Social media has become a primary tool for businesses in developing relationships with consumers online while further promoting its products, services, and/or ideas as part of an overall digital marketing strategy.  However, measuring the effectiveness of a company’s online social efforts can often produce more qualitative data rather than quantitative, which can seem a bit sketchy for people outside of the marketing industry that are more comfortable using concrete numbers to determine an ROI. 

However, regardless of the lack of quantitative data or how difficult it may be to measure to social media ROI, businesses are now more than ever beginning to understand that they cannot afford to ignore social media any longer.  The results from The CMO Survey conducted in February of 2012 shows that businesses are continuing to increase their spending for social media. According to the survey, “In the next 5 years, marketers expect to spend 19.5% of their budgets on social media, almost three times more than the current level” (Moorman, 2012).

Social Media Spend as a % of Marketing Budget 

Analyzing Website Traffic

If one goal for your social media efforts is to drive traffic to your online website, you can measure the success rate of this goal by analyzing your website’s traffic.  But, this still may not give you the true cost of the traffic.  In order to get an even better understanding of what the true cost of this traffic may be, John Souza from Fast Company suggests comparing your website’s analytics with other online efforts such as PPC campaigns or pay per click.  “If you utilize pay-per-click strategies to drive traffic, look at the average cost of those PPC campaigns per person then analyze that cost against how many visitors you get from free social media placements. You can then put a dollar sign on the traffic you derive from Facebook pages, Twitter links and the like” (Souza, 2012). 

Conversions

            Although noticeably and continuously pushing products on social media is likely to end up doing more harm than good by annoying your audience, you may still be able track sales from customers who first visited your page by clicking on a social media link or by visiting your company’s “fan” page.  Google Analytics and other similar web analytics tools can follow the visitors originally referred to your site from social media and track any conversions over a specific period of time (Chitwood, 2013). 

Engagement

            Measuring engagement for your social media sites can also be very beneficial.  Analyzing your accounts and recording the number of “likes”, “shares”, and “comments” posts generates is always helpful.  Also, monitoring changes in the number of “fans” or “follower” is important.  However, you can measure the average engagement rate by comparing your posts’ engagement with your overall “fan” or “follower” base (Chitwood, 2013). 

References:

Chitwood, L. (2013, October 13). 5 social media metrics that your business should be tracking. Retrieved from http://thenextweb.com/socialmedia/2013/10/29/5-social-media-metrics-business-tracking/

Moorman, C. (2012, March 06). Social media spend continues to soar. Retrieved from http://www.cmosurvey.org/blog/social-media-spend-continues-to-soar/

Souza, J. (2012, July 26). 3 steps to measuring your compan'ys social media roi. Retrieved from http://www.fastcompany.com/1843675/3-steps-measuring-your-companys-social-media-roi