MEASURING THE ROI OF SOCIAL MEDIA

Social media plays an integral part in our lives today, and with an estimated 1.7 billion users worldwide, it has provided commercial enterprises with a unique way to engage with existing and potential customers.

With as many as 81% of SMEs now incorporating social media into their digital marketing strategies, it is now recognised as an important factor to a company’s growth.

However, when it comes to quantifying the benefits of social media, there's a lot of corporate head scratching going on. How effective is social media exactly?

Understanding and measuring social media ROI can give you insight into how much money you’re making from it but unfortunately, calculating this number isn’t as simple as you might imagine. It can be extremely time consuming, and it’s difficult to know how much money you are making from something that focuses so heavily on brand reputation and connections, rather than sales. But fear not. It can be done.

Here are three easy steps you can take to start measuring your social media results.

1. Define your social goals

The first step is to establish specific, tangible goals, and build your strategy around them. One way to do this is using "SMART" methodology:

Specific: Be specific in target results. For instance, use numbers and action verbs — change, improve, complete, perform, etc. — when setting goals.
Measurable: Have a way to measure progress.
Actionable: Goals should be achievable by those assigned to work on them.
Realistic: Consider available resources and skills to make sure goals are not impossible to achieve.
Timed: Set a deadline by which goals should be achieved.

2. Tailor your metrics for social.

Measuring social media ROI can be problematic for brands because they are using metrics that aren't aligned with social media. The foundation of your metrics should be audience, reach, engagement and sentiment. You can then create an approach based around those areas, that's as simple or as complex as you want.

3. Create a dashboard.

Every brand should have a central hub for data, whether it’s a third-party tool or something that you've created internally, like an Excel spreadsheet.

Data should be collected and evaluated on a regular basis.

At Social Media First, we can help you grow your business with attention grabbing social media campaigns. Why not drop us a line and see how we can help? 01892 670830, or email us at [email protected].