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As the organizations are gradually realizing the importance of social media, they are also increasing the budgets allocated for the same. But increasing budget also means that the marketers cannot do it casually. They must deliver visible and quantifiable results. This is exactly where the question of return of investment comes.
So, how to measure ROI and how to enhance it?
The latter will surely depend on your own creativity and skills but before that you need to get a clearer picture through analytics. Google analytics is of course a good free tool used by everyone. Even Facebook and Twitter offer their own analytics nowadays. It can tell you the amount of traffic generated by your social channels. But for better planning you will need to know more.
So, here are a few additional tools to measure your social ROI and enhance the same. Most of them have free to use features with some advanced paid options....
Do you track social media metrics? Real life examples illustrate you need to do something & 5 tips to help you start measuring your results....
What’s missing from this social media list?
There’s no mention social media marketing’s relationship to revenues (including lead generation) or profits, the elements businesses use to keep score of their success.
This, despite the fact that marketing’s goal is to communicate to and engage with its target audience; to convey the value of its products and services and drive profitable sales.
Tracking social media results to sales can be difficult since it may not be the last piece of marketing touched before the purchase as is the case with search or affiliate sales. In part, this is why so many executives attribute improved branding to social media. They need to show that it’s supporting their overall efforts in a measurable way in order to continue to provide budget and resources....
During a recent #CMWorld Twitter Chat on search and content marketing, I was asked a question: “What tools should content marketers use when it comes to #SEO? #CMWorld?”
At the time, I shared a quick list of content tools for search via a series of tweets. Afterwards, though, CMI asked me to provide more details on some of the SEO tools out there that could be useful for content marketers. The following list of free and paid tools represents some of the core, “blocking and tackling” SEO tasks that content marketers can use to advance the findability of their work.
While this list is not comprehensive by any means, since there are literally hundreds of SEO-focused content tools, plug-ins, bookmarklets, software solutions, and services on the market, it is simply meant to serve as a starting point for your efforts to improve your content’s search potential....
Everyone in business should understand opportunity cost (lost opportunity cost or missed opportunity cost). If you bring this kind of analysis to bear, you will quickly see why your business cannot afford to ignore social media as part of your marketing and customer service programs. Ignoring social media results in more than one missed or lost opportunity. Each opportunity carries a cost to your company.
Before you start plugging numbers into a cost equation, understand that social media success requires three things: 1. Knowledge 2. Time (typically 6 to 12 months) 3. Involvement
Understand as well that social media marketing alone is not likely to achieve your marketing goals. Social media should be used alongside and in conjunction with a range of other online and traditional marketing tactics or activities. Finally, understand that you need to understand and know how to measure some new key performance indicators, including...
Here you are, blogging, tweeting, and celebrating your new YouTube video tipping past 5,000 views when you realize…Where are the sales?Without hard facts – dollars earned per dollar spent – your “successful” content marketing isn’t going to be “successful” for much longer.
But isn’t measuring the ROI of your content marketing supposed to be impossible? Don’t you have to hire a really expensive analytics firm to get answers?No and no.
Your content strategy does produce results, and those results can be measured. You don’t have to hold a degree in computer science or a fat wallet either. Here’s how….
Understanding the complexity of how your social media efforts affect search ranking is vital for you to know how to use social networking to your advantage.... It’s time marketers and brand owners realize the immense impact social media has on their search ranking. The way marketers and content creators use social media and social networking has always been focused on building a huge following, but it goes much deeper than that. Today search engines incorporate influence into their search result rankings, and social media has an ever increasing part in that. If you want to make sure your search ranking is as good as it can be, this is going to help you. I could probably go on all day long about exactly how social media affects your search ranking, and what you need to understand and think about when you start promoting and marketing your services, content or website. But I am not going to bore you to death with all the technicalities that go into it all. This is more about how you can improve your search ranking with a few adjustments and a little bit of understanding of how it all works....
The catch phrase of 2013 seems to be “Big Data” – the concept of how massive amounts of strategic data collection (can you say “google”), analysis and targeting can generate huge ROI for businesses. I’ve written how I believe technology for marketers has finally caught up (technology-wise and cost-effectiveness) to where “lazy marketing” is no longer a valid excuse. Do you know which of your marketing channels are bringing in the most customers? In today’s multi-channel world, it can be tough to tell. Generating engaging content marketing media is already tough enough – we need tools and processes to know what’s working and what’s not in order to maximize ROI. Savvy marketers know and use closed-loop analytics tools to measure, analyze, and act on the performance of all the elements of their marketing, from blogs to social media, landing pages to leads, and calls-to-action to email marketing and more. Take a look at the infographic/study below, conducted by the gurus at SEOmoz. The standout takeaway: “….lastly, it turns out that 60.2% of marketers are looking for analysis options, as well as other analytics options, in their social media management tools”. This comes as no surprise. When savvy social media marketers are communicating their messages online, they want to know exactly how those efforts are benefiting them by analyzing whether each social strategy is connecting to their end goal: revenue….” …and how do your social media channels stack up against your blogs, videos email touches and landing pages?...
Though measuring social media ROI may not be perfect, it's not impossible either. These three methods can help gauge what your small business is getting out of its social media commitment.... But just how much time and effort should it consume? While it may be easy for the average small business to say it’s worthwhile to be on Facebook , most would agree monitoring it and posting 24/7 would be a waste of resources. The only way to know how much social media is enough is to have some sort of gauge on your return on investment. That’s not to say measuring ROI is a snap. Fast Company cites an Adobe white paper that says 88% of 750 surveyed marketing professionals didn’t feel they could accurately measure the effectiveness of their social media campaigns. Fifty-two percent said that dealing with social media ROI was their biggest frustration. Here are a few ways to ease that annoyance. Though measuring social media ROI may not be perfect, it’s not impossible either. These three methods can help gauge what your small business is getting out of its social media commitment....
There are tons of rumors floating around about how Google Plus will help you with your SEO rankings. While this may or may not true, it shouldn't be the sole reason to use G+. The reason to use G+ is to connect and converse with your audience. If you only take one thing away from my engagement series, it should be this: each social network is unique in its own way, with its own personality and set of best practices. Knowing how each social network operates is going to give you a head start in your social media marketing by allowing you to connect to your past, present, and future audience in an acceptable manner. As I continue my engagement series, in the next two posts we will switch focus to Google Plus. Google Plus is the newest of the group, and like it or not, it is Google, and thus should not be ignored....
In this series, we’re going to look critically at the ways PR has traditionally been measured and the ways we’re measuring PR today. Measuring PR and earned media has always been something of a challenge in the past, but thanks to digital marketing and metrics tools, it’s easier today to find the impact of PR, even with businesses that have significant offline components. - Sales/business goals - Marketing metrics - Social media - Search marketing - Paid advertising - Primary research - Standard media metrics In this post, we’re going to look at social media as a proxy for measuring public relations. Social media itself can be measured in three broad categories, from audience growth to engagement to conversion....
Recently released research by LoyaltyOne and two leading North American academic institutions provides the long-awaited proof that social media interaction between a customer and a brand drives immediate and long-term sales increases. The findings are based on a two-year analysis of brand-customer social media engagement and transaction data with the more than 10-million member AIR MILES Reward Program. AIR MILES collectors were encouraged to engage with the AIR MILES-hosted social community website by sharing thoughts about the brand or participating in promotions; they were rewarded either with a small number of bonus miles or entry to a lottery for large prizes. By analysing their unique collector data, researchers were able to show that these participants increased their purchases from program partners by 15-30 per cent over non-participants. It’s proof that smart social media marketing can deliver a significant, lasting and measurable increase in customer engagement and transactions....
Here is my monthly, running tally of how many people are using some of the top social media updated for January 2013..
Argyle Social is on a mission to help marketers drive meaningful business outcomes through social media marketing. [Great insight into maximizing social media engagement: - marketers post when they're at work instead of one their audience is online - on Facebook, marketers get better B2C engagement on weekends in the evenings - on Twitter, marketers get better B2B engagement on weekdays during the day. More insight on this excellent infographic ~ Jeff]
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....Before I jump into some of the quick wins, I do want to be clear that most short wins won’t translate into revenue. This is especially true as the products and services you offer become more complex. The buyer’s journey of selling through social media tends to closely match the 3D buyer’s journey that often includes multiple meetings and presentations before a purchase is made.
Having said that, if the goal is quick wins and so long as you clearly articulate that most of them are going to be more drivers of visibility than sales, there are some things a company can do to show immediate success with social media.Here are a few examples of some quick wins that can help show the boss the potential of social media....
When businesses first start out using social media, there are usually two main problems: getting social media results is a huge one, but when the results don’t materialize, the other is pressure from upper-management or business owners to get results.
The result can often mean the budget for your social media campaign being pulled. Fortunately, it is possible to get results and today I’m going to show you how....
The ongoing debate about the value of social media engagement remains unresolved. However efforts have been made to assess the value of social media as “earned media” and to assess the ROI of social media marketing. After applying these recent calculations to our business and to our clients’ businesses, we find the assessments reasonable. At the very least, these calculations create a starting point for analysis of individual business results. ...
If you are yet to become a busy entrepreneur you are likely wasting your time on Facebook and twitter. You might feel otherwise but I can just about guarantee you that you are not effectively working your social media marketing campaign.
Why? Work tends to fill the time allotted for work.You are not under a tight deadline, or a strict schedule, so you tend to BS, or chat, or waste time checking out silly social updates, and fritter away hours or even days on these websites.Once you get busy, well, that is another story. But you need not become busy to adopt an effective social media marketing strategy. Develop good habits now by honestly assessing whether or not you waste time on social sites....
...He's also a data guy. An MIT alum and lecturer, Brian knows how to separate useful data from vanity metrics, and he's quick to let you know what truly counts as an indicator of how our company is faring at delivering on its promise. While we proudly think of Brian as a unique leader, this laser focus on measuring the right metrics is something I'd wager he shares with CEOs across the board. And when it comes to social media, in particular, vanity metrics abound. So here are some social media metrics that actually matter to our CEO --- and likely yours, too! ...
Marketing podcast with Mitch Joel: I've been sensing a change these days. Actually, like most change, it happens in a way that is imperceptible, until you step back and look at something like a six month window.... The change we are undergoing right now will dwarf what we’ve seen over the past five years. Every bit of data and information we share and consume is headed towards a single source or, as Joel calls it, a single pipe. We are moving beyond customer service and marketing messages to a era where businesses must be built to interface directly with the customer at every level. The customer and the direct relationship with the customer is an organization’s greatest asset and greatest risk. An organization’s ability to respond directly and in real time will determine success and failure. Proactively leveraging opportunities in real time is the new landscape. One of my favorite lines from the book sums this up – “Instead of asking people to like us Facebook – why not trying liking them first.”-...
An SEO audit is a great way to determine the current optimization state of your website and see what you need to improve. It’s also shows you the SEO strategy of your competition and how you can outdo them. Much of the key information for a website SEO assessment is available for free on the web and by inspecting your site’s source code. But to make it even easier and avoid having to look through website source code, you can use Firefox Toolbars that give you all of the information you need instantly....
With so many numbers to track, how do you figure those which are worth tracking for your product or service? The agate “measure what matters” could not be more valid when it comes to social media. ...If marketers don't approach social media right, they’re just annoying people. As long as marketers think that tracking social media ROI is an impossible task, they’re going nowhere. But what are the metrics that assure social media success?...
The most overrated social media metric is traffic from social outposts. Pinterest in particular is overhyped in this regard. Measure behavior to test true value.... ...Don’t Forget This: You are in the behavior business, not the eyeballs business. The Social Media Metrics That Matter When determining the value of your social media efforts, and certainly when calculating your ROI, you must focus on behavior, not aggregation. Almost always, numbers that count steadily upward (like number of fans, number of visitors, etc.) are inferior to ratios and percentages that measure behavior. Knowing that Pinterest sends a ton of traffic to your site should CREATE questions in your company, not answer them....
Knowledge is power and knowing what the online trends are is vital if you want to stay ahead of the pack. While case studies are definitely useful, sometimes you will need research and studies to help figure out what direction you want your business to take. So to help out, we found 40 studies, research papers and guides to help improve your marketing capabilities. Some are stats based, some go into detail regarding the methodology and findings, and some just offer advice on the best practices....
It's shameful so many brands still ask social media to deliver likes, fans, followers, views and channel performance indicators, not real business results. It's 2013. Social media is no longer new. It's a mature medium, one that has been woven into the fabric of consumer life online. So why are brands still determined to act like naive tourists, blundering around a foreign land and upsetting the natives? It's time to take back control. Brands have been lectured for the last few years on the need to let go of the vice-like grip on their brand, to hand over control to their customers in social media. And it's true that social media has ushered in a new age of transparency, where customers want a far greater stake in any brand they interact with....
Learning how Google Analytics gives credit to your conversions will help you avoid making some very bad marketing decisions.
Via Martin (Marty) Smith
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How to measure social media ROI and how to enhance it? Here are a few tools for the job.