With everyone, from Google to Tesco asking how they can measure the ROI of social media, we applaud the WineLibraryTV.com founder for telling them to stick thier forumlae.
Considering that for businesses, knowing the Return of Investment is crucial for understanding how successful their project is. It is no wonder the big guys want to know exactly what putting all their efforts into understanding and utilizing Social Media will result in moneywise.
Google Analytics have tried to answer the ‘What is the ROI on Social Marketing?’ question by adding a new feature that provides businesses with social-focused reports. Which Phil Mui, the Group Product Manager, claims takes a different approach than most social analytics products. Phils says that they are more focused on measuring the ‘listening’, such as mentions, retweets, and analyzing sentiment etc.
So you tell Google your goal. Then google shows you how many visits you receive on each social network you provide. And how many of those visits are converting to the goal your provided. The goal you provide can be anything from, registering a user to having someone click on certain pages on your website.
Abode have also tried to answer this question, releasing a study at the Adobe Digital Marketing Summit 2012 which evaluated how marketers measure the amounts of traffic generated on Corporate Websites through Social Networks. Concluding that Social Networks are significantly underestimated.
Everyone is trying to measure something but it is not the exact ROI of Social Media. Social Media is so new that its direct impact on bottom line cannot be measured at the moment. Just keep doing it, keep listening (not talking) and you’ll see in 2-5 years how you’ll be in the top 5% of your sector.
(Image Courtesy of aussiegall and Hans_Van_Rijnberk)