Measuring the Value of Social Media

April 10th, 2012#smwomen

@socialmediawomn

• Does social media have a value?• Can you measure it?• What tools are there to measure Social?• The future of Social Media Measurement

Measuring value starts with defining your social media objectives

• Why am I using social media?– Awareness/brand building– Drive traffic• To site• In store

– Increase leads– Increase sales

Can you really measure the value of social media?

• Some people argue you can’t measure the value of social media

• But: you’re investing money & time in it OR you’re asking your client or your company to

invest in it you are making financial & strategic decisions

There’s lots of numbers... But what matters?

• Is there value in measuring “vanity metrics”:– # of fans– # of followers– # of retweets, reach etc

• Does it really matter if you’re not sure how much value they contribute to your business?

What to measure?

•# of fans/followers

•Amplification (sharing etc)

Audience/Reach•Interacti

ons with social content

•Sentiment

Engagement

•Conversion to sale (purchases – online & offline)

•Cost savings (customer service self service etc)

•Lifetime Customer Value

Value

Is there a ‘standard’ value for a Social Media fan/follower?

Some companies can find that a social media fan/follower is more valuable (in lifetime value) than a non-social customer.

Little value in creating a standard value unless you base that on real data, and results from your own results.

Source: DigitalBuzzBlog.com

Think about: - Your average customer value- Your average cost to acquire

a customer- What you spend on other lead generation activity eg

advertising, SEO, SEM

Measuring value from a Facebook competition

• Shoes of Prey case study• Objectives:– Increase fan base– Increase email subscriber base– Increase sales

• Cost: $6800• 17500 new likes (.38c each)• 4000 new email subscribers ($1.70 each)• $3250 of sales attributed to campaign

Source: 22Michaels.com

Measuring value by customer retention & sentiment• UBank case study• Objectives:

– Innovation– Customer Service– Education

• Measuring:– Sentiment (Net Promoter Score)– Impact on sales– Customer service:

• Time to resolve• # of compliments/complaints

Source: eMarketingConnected

Value of Social Media for Customer Service

• Customers can find their own answers, and solve each other’s problems

• Large companies doing Customer Service using Social measure cost savings

Measuring cost per acquisition & lifetime value

StyleTread know two key things about their social media acquired customers: - Lower cost to acquire customer- Higher lifetime value (more likely to spend more)

Source: eMarketingConnected.com.au

Social Media Value Maturity Model

How large companies measure ‘value’

• Conversions (purchases on eCommerce site)– Direct result of Social Media– Multiple channels including Social Media

(attribution)• Average lifetime value of a Social Media

acquired customer compared to non-SM• Leads acquired through Social channels• Reduced cost of customer service channels

But you don’t need a complex measurement approach

Before Social Media:Sold 2 x day

After Social Media:Sell 10 x sandwich aday

Tools that can help

Core Website Analytics eg Google Analytics,

Omniture

Social Media Mgmt eg HootSuite,

Radian 6

Facebook Insights, LinkedIn page stats

Sentiment: eg Social Mention, Buzz

NumbersManual tracking

CRM

Look at what you can measure with your existing toolset

• Conversions – sign up or– purchase

• For our business that is ‘value’ because:– We can reduce our spend on Search Engine

Marketing– We can reduce our spend on traditional PR

What else can inform our decisions on Social Media

• We also know what channel brings us the most value, so we know which social media is more likely to convert

• That lets us focus our efforts on the most successful channels for us

• We still continue with the other channels, but put less time into these

Analytics: traffic sources for conversions

• Can compare sources of conversions eg direct, search, social media

Analytics: multi-channel funnels showing multiple interactions• Using multi-channel funnels, track conversion

across channels, shows a number of interactions before conversion

Multiple interactions before conversionSome direct through social media, some include social

Learn which social media channels are the most effective

Other useful measurement

• Simple insights: Facebook insights can help you understand what your audience respond to

Other useful tools

Crowdbooster is useful for showing which tweets had most impact, the best times to tweet and influential followers.

Other measurementsSocial Mention does quite simple sentiment measurement

Sentiment measurement isn’t foolproof

Worth benchmarking now and as you do more social activity

Other measurements

Social Influence measures are increasingly being used in business

Some companies already prioritise customer service queries by looking at Klout scores of customers

What next?

• New Google Analytics: – Social Reporting being enhanced

Future predictions

• Increased pressure to show measurable return• Smarter and more integrated reporting

toolsets• More focused use of social media channels as

companies understand what is returning value and stop using what isn’t

• Social influence scores increasingly used in business decision making

Now what?• Know how much social media costs:

– Tools– Time

• Know what your objectives are• Know the value of achieving those objectives:

– Value of a lead– Value of a sale– Value of a customer

• Benchmark (today):– How many visits/leads/sales do I get– How many from SM and from what channels

• Keep tweaking• Keep measuring

Useful resources

Smart Insights – Tips on Social Measurement with Google Analytics

http://www.smartinsights.com/google-analytics/google-analytics-setup/google-social-analytics-review/

Occam’s Razor Blog:http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/best-social-media-metrics-conversation-amplification-applause-economic-value/

Google Analytics Conversion Room Blog:http://conversionroom-japac.blogspot.com.au/

Keep in touchWeb: www.eMarketingConnected.com.au Email: tracey.brown@emarketingconnected.com.auPhone: 0448822369

http://au.linkedin.com/in/traceylbrown

@traceybrown74

www.facebook.com/pages/EMarketingConnectedAU