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In Part II, Social Media Measurability, I talked about the missing link in social media – the almighty measurable ROI.
For the last few years clients have known they needed to be involved in key social media channels, though they haven't been sure why or how to truly leverage it. Many still aren't. And with no way to track each aspect of their collective efforts across all channels, the challenge was in proving that social media was a sound investment of resources.
Enter Social ROI
Now, those days of quasi-accountability are gone. Enter Social ROI – a social media analytics solution that allows businesses to monitor individual social channels and the demographics of their entire network, track promotional efforts, discover conversations by keyword – and measure the conversion results in actual dollars.
Just as Google Analytics measures and reports website statistics, Social ROI provides granular demographic information on your membership (community fan base, followers, subscribers), including gender, age, interests, geography, education, employment, referring links and more. More importantly, Social ROI enables businesses to create goals and campaigns, promote their offerings through their social channels – and measure the conversion results in real dollars.
Discovering conversations by keyword across all channels saves time and can lead to providing value, cherry-picking prospects or see who's talking about your brand to better manage "online PR".
Get a 30-Day FREE Trial of Social ROI
Liqui-Site announces a 30-Day FREE Trial of Social ROI for our "Lake" or "River" plans. As an exclusive offer, now through November 23, 2011: Sign up for the "Lake" plan and Liqui-Site will set up all of your social media accounts within the Social ROI solution for you at no additional cost! No risk. All reward.
Learn more about Social ROI and View Plans & Pricing
by Richard Feldman
Liqui-Site Designs
Experience our commitment to you, from our very first conversation.™
What's the point of social media if you can't measure the effort?
In Part I, Social Media Monetization, I shared a few examples of how to directly increase a brand's revenue using social media. It was a direct answer to a direct question a client had asked me.
But, there's a bigger, more important, long-term piece to the social media puzzle. And it’s called measurable ROI.
Driving prospects to a website (or landing page) and seeing an immediate revenue increase is the easiest and fastest way to understanding the power of social media. But a well-crafted strategy could take that one-time revenue increase and allow you to take what you learn and apply it to similar or brand new campaigns across other channels (new channels mean new prospects). While at the same time, the relationships you build with customers or clients allow you to sell them on other products or services once you’ve established that your brand is trustworthy, provides quality and value, and is committed to its customers needs and overall satisfaction.
Now, increasing exposure through social media leads me to think about how to measure and track results. Seems to me you'd need an analytics solution that allows you to track your social network channels just the same way you would track the performance of your website -- you know, something like a Google Analytics clone, but designed to analyze and report on your social media efforts. I mean, just like GA tracks visitors, time on site, keywords, geography and many other aspects of web performance, an integrated social media measurement system would allow you to track all aspects of your brand’s social media presence.
Hmmm... Imagine being able to get real-time reporting on your social network accounts to overlay with your other (i.e. traditional) marketing initiatives – to zero in on membership trends, activity and engagement, thoughts and feelings of your customers and members, their interests, their geographical distribution, education levels, gender, employment, and countless other metrics. If you were able to compare your social media channels and understand the difference among them and their impact on your business, you might even improve your ROI by being able to adjust spends.
Imagine learning the real-time answers to questions like these:
1 - Which social channels are most effective for us?
2 - What are the accurate traffic patterns/trends?
3 - Which customers and segments are most valuable?
4 - Where are my customers and members located?
5 - What is my demographic (age, gender, education, HHI)?
6 - What's our level of activity, engagement, membership?
7 - What are they talking about; what motivates them?
8 - Who's talking about products / services we can offer?
9 - Which networks produce more response and better ROI?
10 - What kind of ROI are we getting, in real numbers?
Now, imagine having these answers presented to you as intuitive, thorough, visual reports. As I wrote in one of my last blog posts, Brand Monologue? Try Brand Dialogue Instead!, social media is about an exchange with customers and prospects, not a one-way street of self promo. A dialogue makes communication more satisfying, fulfilling and much more profitable. Successful brands have given creative thought to the process of communicating with customers – and to their social media strategy, making it a viral engagement.
Interestingly, just like traditional media, social media requires testing to learn what works and how to improve results to build a genuine community around YOUR brand.
by Richard Feldman
Liqui-Site Designs
Experience our commitment to you, from our very first conversation.™
What's the point of social media if you can't monetize the effort?
More and more, each day, I hear from business owners, executives, and online marketing professionals “If social media doesn’t influence the sales process and the effort can't be monetized immediately, then what’s the point?” I understand their frustration and how overwhelming both social media strategy and questionable ROI can be. Looking for ideas on how to test social media as a revenue generator? Here are a few real-world examples:
Burt's Bees is perhaps a little more well-known for its lip balm than its Facebook Page, but Facebookers can buy products directly from Burt's Bees Facebook Page’s Shop & Share feature. The company has become one of the leading manufacturers of natural personal care products. With more than 150 products to sell, Facebook is the perfect space for the company to connect with its fans and customers. “Through Facebook, we can introduce new products more interactively than in print or banner ads…and provide a space where [our consumers] can connect with one another,” says Melissa Sowry, the company's social media and content manager. Burt's Bees, nearing 700,000 fans, prides itself on its ability to engage with its customers on Facebook by responding to comments – and allowing customers to lead the conversation. In 2010, the company reported that its Page has doubled the traffic from Facebook to its e-commerce site, and the increase in sales and overall brand awareness from their online marketing test was enough to make it a must-have for future fiscal budgets.
The NY JETS launched their Ultimate Fan social game in September 2010, which was the first revenue-generating Facebook app to be backed by a pro sports team. The application lets football fans do online what they would normally do at home and in stadiums — root for their favorite teams and players, predict game scores, hold a virtual tailgate party and purchase promotional wear. Ultimate Fan sells banner advertising to other firms like Ticketmaster, and has since lured four major sponsors integrating their brands: MetLife, Motorola, SportsNet NY and HotelPlanner.com. Monetize much? Let’s just call this game-changer a blowout.
Whitecaps Foul Weather Gear is a great example of engaging a smaller, niche audience in order to monetize social media. Testing effective email marketing, coupled with social media engagement, Whitecaps saw an increase of $5,000 in less than 30 days, using Facebook to drive sales via a promo code. Now, that really gave folks in the global sailing and boating community something to "Like". The offer was hugely successful using a single platform as the test. (See my blog post "Viral Messaging Spreads Like Wildfire".) Recently, we learned that Constant Contact will promote Liqui-Site's email marketing and social media customization work for Whitecaps Foul Weather Gear, nationally. According to company president, Mark Kamen, “We were thrilled with the test success and we plan to greatly increase our exposure through social media in 2012 and beyond.”
The next question is “Now that we’re increasing revenue through social media, how do we ensure that increase for the long-term – and improve upon it?”
I’ll answer that very question in my next blog post, Social ROI Part II: Social Media Measurability. To make sure you’re the first to know, you can either bookmark us in your browser, subscribe to our blog via RSS feed or follow us with Google Friend Connect at right. Since this IS all about social media, we’ll also post a link in our social channels on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Any way you see fit, connect with us. We’ll provide tremendous value, just keep the comments and questions coming!
by Richard Feldman
Liqui-Site Designs
Experience our commitment to you, from our very first conversation.™
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