Measure Social Media ROI by Susan Appel

Susan Appel

Social Media has the ability to drive inbound leads (people requesting information from you) into your business. These leads will transform the way you look at growing your business. But the question everyone is asking is, “How do we measure return on investment of social media?”

I was recently at a technology conference where one panelist stated, “The goal is not to be good at social media, but to use social media as a tool to be good at business.” This statement clearly defines that your social media priority should be to grow your business.

Let’s apply the idea of using social media to be good at business to how we look at return on investment (ROI). There is a lot of discussion about how much a “friend” is worth. While it is important to have friends and fans, that isn’t where the ROI comes from. Friends and fans allow you to gather a group of active listeners. Your challenge is to convert those listeners into advocates or people taking action, and this is where ROI comes into to play.

Monitoring Actions

The ROI for your program is going to come from the action you get your social network to take toward growing your business. So the real question is, “What should I be measuring and why?”

·         Growth over time: number of friends, followers, site traffic

o        I just said that this doesn’t translate into ROI, so why do I suggest measuring it? This will show you if your message is resonating with your target audience. If your message isn’t resonating, it is time to make some changes. You want to make sure your network is growing. Growth in your network creates a larger audience that can spread your message and take actions toward the growth of your business.

·         Conversion metrics

o        The first question you should ask when creating a social media program is, “What are the three to five actions that will affect the growth of my business?” These actions may include signing up for an event, downloading a white paper or requesting information. Your program should be created around driving people to take these actions. This means rather than concentrating on promoting your business, your key focus should be to lead your audience to take these three to five specific actions.

·         Funnel Metrics

o        Using a tool such as Google Analytics allows you to monitor where and when people are leaving your site. This enables you to make small changes to maximize the benefit for each person that visits your site.

Social Media ROI is about understanding the actions that grow your business and developing a dialogue with your audience that results in your network taking action.

Susan Appel is director of social media & inbound marketing at THE HEAVYWEIGHTS, a company focused on solving problems that prevent healthcare and high growth companies from growing.

Click here to learn more about how to measure social media ROI.

Tags: Business, Conversion rate, Google Analytics, Jeremiah Owyang, Rate of return, Social Media, Social network, Target audience