The benefits of a well-run social media campaign are far reaching and long lasting. Most companies agree that even when there is little direct conversion involved, social media is still the place to be, simply because that’s where consumers are.
Since there are several ways to add value to your business in the long run by creating personal connections with customers and building a strong online presence to increase your brand awareness, it can be difficult to measure your overall results. Here are some ways to increase the accuracy and relevance of your analytics, and find ways to improve what you’re doing online.
Overall Presence vs. Single Campaign
It is easier to track progress if you separate your measurements into individual campaigns as well as tracking your overall gains. For instance record the number of followers you had on Facebook before you start a contest, and track the results for a month. If you had grown your Likes count by 120 since you started the page a year ago, and gained 26 followers in the month you ran the contest, you know that you practically doubled your conversion rate.
The more statistics you can track, the more you can deduce from analysis. For instance if in your Facebook contest you gave away a $50 gift card for Best Buy and increased your followers by 26 in a month, your cost per conversion is roughly $2.00. If you buy $50 worth of advertising and generate 35 likes in that month, your cost per conversion is roughly $1.43. It’s also important to consider who the Likes are, the quality of your audience.
Keep your control as stable as possible when conducting measurements
One of the best times to make precise measurements is in the beginning. If your Twitter account has 0 followers and you use a method to grow that number, it’s safe to say that most of your followers will be a result of that method. If you are trying to get exact measurements on a specific method and one of your Tweets goes viral, your results will look better than they actually are. It’s always smart to finish one campaign before you move on to the next. You’ll never know if the ads you run in next Sunday’s newspaper helped any if you are also running a commercial on the Super bowl the same day.
Use the Stock Analytics Programs
I have used hundreds of programs to measure and analyze web traffic, and in my opinion the current Google Analytics application and Facebook Page Insights are two of the best measurement programs I have ever used. The most important stats are the simplest ones. While both platforms include the simple stats in abundance, they also include metrics that are surprisingly telling when it comes to the question “Is What I’m Doing Working?”
One of my favorite tools is Google’s In Page Analytics. Social media bloggers went crazy when the first firms published heat map studies that showed where users looked when given 10 seconds to view a web page. Most webmasters don’t have the budget to afford a heat map study, but Google’s In-Page analytics gives you a “click-heat map” for free. Access in-page analytics from your site’s dashboard under the content menu.
Through extensive analysis across a number of websites I have come to find that category links are practically worthless on niche blogs where most of the content is related. However on content sites that cover a wide range of topics, category links are often some of the most used. Many marketers have been denouncing the “About me” pages recently, which is an example of blogger egos leading them to believe their own opinions as fact. The About me pages rank in the top 10% of links above the fold in all cases I’ve recently studied except for one, and often rank as the most visited link. In response to the most recent in-page analytics for this blog, I will be removing category links all-together soon in favor of site-specific pages.
Solicit Feedback from Users
You can’t always get good measurements if your success doesn’t rest solely on a sales or conversion metric. The most beneficial aspects of social media marketing are often considered to be public relations, product perception and product awareness. Even with all these high powered analytics, simple customer feedback is still one of the most valuable measurements you can get.
I would recommend getting feedback from readers as opposed to other bloggers or consultants. The best feedback will be the feedback that comes from your targeted customer. Tone and response rates are often as telling as the feedback itself (irate customers who reply in droves signal a major problem with your strategy, but so does apathetic customers who don’t even care to respond).
It’s easy to ignore measurement and analytics when you dedicate so much time to production and maintenance, but it is an essential process if you want to improve. Take as many measurements as possible, and try to keep everything in context. Be sure to record time frames and dates, to add chronology to that context. What types of measurements do you use? What types of measurements are you interested in, and why?
Twitter: nwjerseyliz
January 27, 2012 at 5:23 pm #
Really great Social Media Marketing 101, Adam! Everyone could learn something from your blog post.
Nice breakdown Adam. ROI is and always will be difficult to manage especially in social media. Spent 15 years in traditional media and it wasn’t always easy breaking down an ROI for a television campaign. You can only take the numbers you have to work with which will typically tell you the story. So much of marketing is creating a tag effect. Follow on FB, Saw spot on TV reacted when hearing on radio..Radio may get the final credit but if you remove one of the previous 2 then do they respond..
mike recently posted..Optimal Ageing Inc Website Design
Twitter: etelligence
January 29, 2012 at 2:32 am #
Mike,
You’re absolutely right about playing tag. You can see a product several times, but usually credit goes the the very last interaction a customer had with your marketing before they became a conversion. ONline marketing became a lot more important when smart phones allowed customers to interact online AT the point of sale. The only other marketing that does that is store staff, and they have traditionally been minimum wage drones paid to run a cash register, not be a marketing conduit. I’m dismissive of marketers who act like Social Media changed the world of marketing to no end, but there is a positive effect related to accountability. You’re accountable to everyone now, not just secret shoppers and restaurant critics.
Adam Justice recently posted..The Future According to Google
Good stuff. I think it’s pretty hard for folks to track social media ROI as well, though when I wrote about it I had a few people say to just run one campaign at a time and they felt that made it easier to do. Easier maybe but definitive and perfect, probably not. Still, I think if one makes sales during a campaign, if that’s their goal, that they weren’t making previously then maybe tracking monetary ROI is a preferable way to go.
I’m going to have to try out that Google heat map thing; I didn’t know it existed. Great share.
Mitch Mitchell recently posted..The Power And Danger Of Social Media
Twitter: etelligence
January 29, 2012 at 2:46 am #
Glad to see you Mitch! Measurement is an untapped arena for average users who market their businesses online. They see “Followers”, “Likes”, and they know their “Profits” and “Cost”, but don’t get in to the analytics on the web to maximize the positive and minimize the negative. Monetary ROI is a great analytic for sales, but there is so much in social media that isn’t related to sales, and that is where it gets tricky, and why people like you and me get sought out for expertise.
I mentioned that you can get a better control by running one campaign at a time. Measurement after all is a science experiment, so it’s easy to use the scientific method as an outline for measuring a campaign. In the end though, do you really want to run just one campaign at a time? It would be the same as never using your Facebook and Twitter during the same week so you know which platform is doing better. Common sense tells you that even though one does better, you’ll be missing out on the users of the other if you ignore it. Same with Social Media campaigns, the overall time cost of maintaining a social presence is high, but the price of adding a smmall campaign to an already substantial online presence is negligible. I can see only running 1 campaign if it is one of the first times you’ve used that specific method and it costs a great deal of your marketing budget, but I wouldn’t miss out on lunch just so you’ll be hungry at dinner. Kinda going against what I said in the article, but the way to get the most control in your analytics and the best marketing practices aren’t always the same, it’s a decision that people will have to make themselves on a case by case basis. Glad you brought that up Mitch.
Adam Justice recently posted..If it’s On the Internet, it must Be True
Twitter: Nichole_Kelly
February 2, 2012 at 10:25 am #
Adam – Thanks so much for sharing. I love that you are talking about measuring a control group. It is an absolute essential to demonstrate social media success. I like to measure the control group a little farther down the pipeline as well. For example, how well do social media leads convert when compared to other marketing channels? Doing this analysis I found that for a previous employer leads converted up to 732% better. That certainly made people take notice. Then I like to track on through the pipeline into customer retention. Do customers who touched the social channel retain longer, spend more, buy more frequently, call customer service less etc.
As you know, I believe in tying everything to a financial metric, so I look at cost per lead, cost per conversion, cost per customer etc.
Great work!
Nichole
Nichole_Kelly recently posted..Why Google Plus Pages Should Make You Cranky But Can’t Be Ignored
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February 2, 2012 at 1:59 pm #
If you always measure you can go back later and study., it’s easier to paint a good picture of what works best, and what needs to be dropped in favor of other methods, or a space to experiment.
I love your enthusiasm, I kind of detect a little social media bias though lol. I would be interested in seeing your 732% study, and knowing what constituted a lead across the different channels.
Financial metrics are the bread and butter of marketing, and I’m like you when it comes to that. However, since so many small businesses invest time instead of money into their online presence, the values placed on investment can be subjective and inaccurate. You know how much you spend on a campiagn, so all you normally need is one number (clicks, likes, subscribers, sales) to have an ROI statistic. When you consider your downstream return Profit though, that is where financial metrics get tricky, even with a control group. Different campaigns can generate the same number of leads, but a substantial difference in profit. Again, that is where measuring EVERYTHING pays off; you can go back after the fact when you know what is important and analyze. You may find out something interesting like users with between 300-1000 Facebook friends constituted 40 percent of your visitors, but 75 percent of your conversions. Of course that’s information you wouldn’t have unless you were tracking everything that is displayed, for impressions, leads, conversions, or any identifiable level of engagement.
You obviously have a gift for numbers, the scientific method and an understanding of statistics Nichole! I always thought that if someone like you had the time to explore them in depth and work closely with a large campaign that it would re-write the book on what ROI encompasses. Great to have you here Nichole, and great to make you a new friend.