Social Networking is a great past time for online consumers, they meet new people, listen and voice different opinions and generally enjoy themselves or they would not be participating.
Well it is most certainly not the case for business. It is becoming increasingly important for businesses to interact with current and potential customers online, consumers are expecting your business to be online for them.
I may as well be blunt. Businesses operate for one reason and one reason only To Make A Profit.
So businesses are now faced with the necessity of participating in Social Networks with their consumers. If they don’t chances are the consumer will click on your competitors site who happens to participate the way they want them to.
But the bottom line here is, operating a Social Media Campaign is a business expense.
For many businesses this expense come mainly in the form of time, there is little need for additional software and many of the most popular Social Networks have no membership fees. The old business adage “Time is Money” most certainly is appropriate for Social Media.
To succeed in Social Media time and commitment is required, Social Media is not a part time marketing initiative.
Measuring The ROI
The Cost of Social Media Campaigns
To simplify the cost aspect of the ROI equation we will assume the only cost associated to your Social Media Campaign is the time of yourself or your employees. This is easy to determine. However, to ensure we are able to estimate the ROI it will be necessary to determine how much time will be spent on the Social Media Campaign and what the cost is for that time.
The ROI of Social Media Campaigns
The Metrics
The success of Social Media Campaigns comprise of both tangible and intangible measuring metrics. Now I am sure it can sound confusing but its not.
The Baseline
Regardless of the metrics used to analyze the productivity of the Social Media Campaign prior to initiation, it is important to determine the business's current status of both tangible and intangible measuring metrics. If this is not completed it is not possible to provide accurate data on the performance of the Social Media Campaign.
Intangible Metrics
Much of the success of the campaign is based on customer experiences, such as:
- Customer satisfaction
- Improved communication
- Better service response
- Higher brand perception
It is not easy to really nail down these benefits to the business but it seems to me that common sense would suggest that improving these types of things benefit the profit margins of the business.
I am not going to dwell on these items at this time, but I have asked a Marketing and Market Research expert to Guest Blog on this topic next week,
Tangible Metrics
There are quite a few methods available to accurately measure effectiveness.
Leads and Sales
Well lets be honest here, this can’t be hard to work out providing we did our baseline work. Your company should know the value of a new lead from previous marketing campaigns and just plain old experience. The sales part should be pretty easy as well.
The Web Site
Ok, now I am back online and back into my comfort zone and there are some very identifiable items that can be measured accurately with your web logs and an Analytics Program such as Google Analytics. But again – Don’t forget the baseline.
Some of the more identifiable items to monitor to ascertain the effectiveness of your Social Media Campaign include increase in:
- New visitor numbers
- Returning visitors
- Newsletter subscribers
- Page Views
- Time on site
- Adsense ad revenue
So in a nutshell (If you know where that saying came from please let me know) Social Media is as measurable as any other form of promotion and in some ways even easier to determine. Social Media Companies are availble to work with you on your Social Media Campaign to ensure you get a measurable ROI..
Keep in mind our Guest Blogger next week who will fill us all in on measuring the intangibles of Social Media. However, consider this if the intangibles are measurable then they are no longer intangible.
Social Media \Campaigns can be measured for ROI
Written by: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .ca a Social Media Consultant offering Social Media Optimization Services
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