Social Media Measurement: From Reach to ROI

Proving Business Value: Let’s Get Practical

Nan DawkinsSMX Social Media Marketing 2012

A Story:

How a turned into a lesson about the business value of earned social media

Brand = FUN

A Facebook Natural

A highly engaged community

Not uncommon for posts to be shared by fans hundreds of times

Then…it all fell apart.No more Facebook page.

To Start Over or Not?This is a lot of work!

Promising, Yes!

A business case? No.

Connecting the data dots:Using archived data stored in Social Snap, we analyzed active

Facebook connections against the customer database

….And found the business case

Customers who were connected to the brand on Facebook spent significantly more overall and on

average, and purchased more frequently.

Chicken or egg? Who cares!

These people buy…repeatedly!

It costs less to up-sell an existing

customer than to acquire a

new one80% of

revenue comes from

20% of customers!

Why

we struggle to show business value

Lack of data is not the problem

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Problem #1: Senior Execs Need Different Metrics

Presentation Title and Event Title

Marketers watch the metrics at the top of the funnel

Senior Execs don’t know what those metrics mean (and don’t care)

…Last click transactions won’t make the business case

…Even when social media generates last click transactions, the numbers are often low

compared to other sources

Social Snap report showing traffic and revenues generated by a social media campaign over a 6 month period

…Because social shines atfilling up the prospect funnel

New Sales

Repeat Purchases &

New Sales

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Problem #2: Data lives in silos

Presentation Title and Event Title

Different tools generate different kinds of metrics…ROI does not live in a silo

SMMSTools Buzz

Monitoring Tools

GA

CRM

Campaign Apps

Twitter Tools

FB Insights

Shiny new tool

Shiny new tool

BuzzMonitoring

Tools

How to solveboth problems…

Start connecting dots.

24Presentation Title and Event Title

The connection with biggest impact: Web Analytics and the CRM System

Metrics Senior Execs will love

• Time to close– Do social leads/prospects close faster than average?

• Average close rate– Do social leads/prospects close at a higher rate than average?

• Average sale and/or LTV– Do social leads /prospects spend more than average?

Web Analytics + CRM =

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Can’t connect all the way to purchase? Focus on leads and prospects

Example: What is an opt-in email address worth?

– Where does social shine?

– Which types of

conversions does it drive?

– What kinds of conversions are other channels driving?

Which conversions?Begin to craft an understanding of what the path is,

which channels touch the customer where

A cheap & easy way to find out where social fits with other channels:

Use UTM Parameters in links

We use links in email. We use links in PPC. We use links in social media.

…But sloppy use of source/medium/campaign parameters leads to confusing data

Give Senior Execs the Big Picture

• Keep it short and simple: Boil it down! • Put it in context• Don’t show conversion values or attribution data that

can’t be validated and defended (they will ask)

For more on this; get Nichole Kelly’s excellent new book!

Don’t forget…There won’t be any business value if you stop paying attention to metrics at

the top of the funnel

– There won’t be any business value to report if you stop paying attention to the metrics that tell you how the community is growing, how engaged it is, what content resonates, etc.

– Senior Execs need DIFFERENT metrics, but business value metrics aren’t the only metrics that are important

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Free Resources• Social Snap URL Management Tool

– http://www.socialsnap.com/url-tracker/

• White Paper: Meaningful Social Media Measurement– http://www.socialsnap.com/wp-request.php?wpid=wp1

• Facebook Metrics Cheat Sheet– http://www.socialsnap.com/wp-request.php?wpid=wp2