Measuring your Social Media ROI – Small Business Marketing 101

This series includes:

Small Business Marketing 101
Step 1: Position and Plan
Step 2: Create an Identity
Step 3: Spread the word through Internet Marketing
Step 4: Measure your Digital Media ROI
Step 5: Measure your Social Media ROI

Marketing channels have drastically changed over the years, and social media has taken an unprecedented seat in majority of all marketing plans. However, measuring social media ROI has been an industry wide controversy and we have set-out to terminate the controversy. Below is a carefully addressed solution on measuring Social Media ROI and likely the last resource you will need to satisfy your objectives. Yes, our agency Creative Intellects innovated this methodology and has proven its track record through our various success stories.

Engagement in digital actions is important for any digital media-marketing program. However, it is far more important that we enable and empower our market to effortlessly share, adapt and evolve these marketing messages. This allows for us to measure the types of influences these messages create. By quantifying the true impact of digital and social actions, as well as moving beyond immediate impact, includes not only your ROI but also your return on influences.

What does all that jargon mean?

It’s simple. Media that is social is different from digital media. In fact, social media has completely different measurements and cannot be compared against digital ROI strategies. The objectives with social media are measuring the following: advocacy, loyalty, trust, and influence. These objectives measure sentiment, comments, feedback, mentions, and organic reach of a brand. These measurements must be utilized far differently.

Measuring Social Media ROI

Understand social media has many levels of user engagements which are translated into four steps.

1. Engagements
- A prospective user that visited your website
- A prospective user that visited your landing pages
- A prospective user that visited your web blog

2. Contribute
- A customer posted a review about your business
- A customer provided you with feedback on another website
- A customer commented about your product/service on a blog

3. Participate
- Followed you on Twitter
- Socially bookmarked your website and/or content
- Became a fan on your Facebook page

4. Create
- Re-tweeted on Twitter
- Wrote a review about your product/service on a personal blog
- Mentioned your product/service on his/her Facebook status
- Engaged in conversation with your product/service

Through Social Interactions Things Occur In Sequence

The return on investment within social media occurs once all the non-financial impacts are fulfilled as outlined above in the four steps. This means that the user goes through the four steps: engages, contributes, participates, and creates for your business. Each of the four translates into value for your organization, eventually facilitating the ‘Word of Mouth’ marketing. This encourages social networking amongst peers with relevant interests to engage, contribute, participate, and create. Talk about buzz marketing and financial impacts at its best. No wonder social media is an unprecedented marketing tool.

So talk to us! How is your social media strategy working for you? If we can help national brands with their marketing strategies, who says that our agency cannot help you? All you have to do is take notes, and if you really want to be a step ahead, make a small investment in our Internet Marketing eBook. Both of these tools and resources will serve as the perfect guide in establishing your brand.