Social media ROI continues to generate a lot of interest among marketers, because without ROI it can be difficult to report the success or failure of social media campaign. A recent survey conducted by Oracle indicates that only 10% of the surveyed businesses can actually tell if their social media campaigns resulted in increased revenue. Further, according to a study of marketing experts performed by Domo, 3 out of 4 marketing experts can’t measure their social media ROI. If you are among those marketers who are struggling to calculate their return on investment, then this article is must read for you as it explains extremely simple but effective ways to calculate ROI of social media campaigns
1. Measure Engagement through Likes and Follows:
One of the easiest ways to measure ROI of social media campaign involves measuring followers on Twitter, likes on Facebook, and all other social media websites that you are associated with. You can make a spreadsheet to track the growth of your fans and followers that can help you to identify trends and the success of specific campaign. The tracking of total number of social media conversions during a particular campaign (followers on Twitter, likes on Facebook, etc.) also gives you relevant and reliable data that you can share with your boss, explaining that you brought X amount of new followers, fans and likes to your company’s social media platforms because of your campaign.
Some tools like Twitter Analytics and Facebook Insights allow you to track how successful a specific post was, which is also helpful in pinpointing the content your customers respond best to. Furthermore, if you are looking to measure the success of a specific hashtag, keyword, or unique topic, there are various tools available such as GroSocial, Brandwatch and Keyhole. These tools explain specific trends on social media sites for the keywords you enter.
2. Measuring Click-through Rate and Impressions:
Click-through rate or CTR is the most commonly used method to measure the success or failure of ads on social media; therefore, you should have complete knowledge of this concept if you are looking to run promotions on social networking sites.
Click-through rate is quite important to proving that your brand is visible on social networking sites. Almost every social networking site gives access to click-through rate measurements through their ad reporting sections. A simple formula for click through rate is, CTR = Clicks ÷ Views (or Impressions). You can download a CSV file of these metrics; combine it with your other social networking sites, and easily view the CTR and impressions for each specific social networking site. Furthermore, you can also use Google Analytics to track click-through rate and impressions of other desired pages.
3. Measure Your Direct Conversions:
If you are running an ecommerce business and have an ecommerce site, there is an easy way to measure the exact revenue that you are making from social referrals. For this, you have to make sure that your Google analytics are set up to track ecommerce. After this, you can track exactly what Facebook referrals are earning in exact amounts. Another tool for tracking direct conversion is Havahart, which tracks its direct conversions by running a report on how many people came from Facebook before purchasing an animal trap or repellent from its site.
4. Set Up Call Tracking:
Another easiest way to measure your ROI for your social media campaign is Call Tracking. Often done with Facebook ad campaigns, this method can be done with other social accounts too. This effective method allows you to directly measure the calls you are getting due to your social networking sites. It is possible because your social media page lists a different business phone number than what is on your business’ site. Whenever you get a call to that particular number, you know the customer got it from your social media page. In this way, you'll get concrete numbers that show the payoff from your social media efforts. Following image show you call tracking method which is used by 12 Keys Rehab in its Facebook page and website:
5. Measure Sentiment:
Another important metric to track is sentiment, which is the general feeling and tone of conversations surrounding your company, brand, or product. It can be difficult for marketers to track sentiment of customers manually, but it is possible. You can determine whether a piece of content or your company as a whole is being referred to in a negative or positive manner by the customers. After that, you can make adjustments or address concerns accordingly, which will improve your company’s quality and credibility in the eyes of your customers.
Various tools like Klout, HootSuite, Buffer and Social Flow allow you to connect many of your social networking accounts and track what is happening on each account from a single dashboard. In addition to this, there are many great tools that include some level of sentiment tracking such as Social Mention, Brandwatch and others. The best part of these tools is that they also allow you to track which people are talking about you, what people are saying about you, and the general attitude towards your brand or product.
Conclusion
Above mentioned simple methods help you to calculate your social media ROI in a hassle free manner. The key to being a good marketer is calculating ROI on regular basis, which helps you in figuring out what is working and what is not working in your campaign. By measuring ROI for your social media campaigns you can not only show your boss the value of your work, but it can also give you an opportunity to reassess your marketing efforts and adjust accordingly.
