Social Media Measurement and the ROI Myth: My Deck From Today’s Online Marketing Summit

3 Responses to "Social Media Measurement and the ROI Myth: My Deck From Today’s Online Marketing Summit"

• Barbara Bix

  November 2, 2010

  Hi Dave,

  This presentation is a keeper. How often do you get a step-by-step guide with concrete action steps? I had a conflict so didn’t get to hear it “live”. I’m wondering how much time it takes per week to execute the plan you’ve outlined.

  I guess there are two parts to the question. How much time to set up your “system” and how much time to execute each week or month? How many visits does a company need to get per year, minimum, to have results that provide useful information–even on a directional basis?

  Thanks!
• Dave Wieneke

  November 3, 2010

  Hi Barbara,

  I’m glad you enjoyed the deck. I enjoyed the mix of strategy (so we measure the right things) followed by demonstration (so we just measure more). Measurement is such a big part of the digital promise, and even though its imperfect and a bit chopped up, businesses of any size can get insights.

  I just did my monthly roll-up for my own use of social media. Thanks to your question I’ll do a post on what I roll in to my report which is a mix of text and screen scrapes on a PowerPoint deck. I did this first thing when I woke up today, and it took a little bit more than an hour to assemble. Then I’ll get some time in the next few days to follow up on the questions its results raise. (ie. what comprised the increase in social channels? were they concentrated bursts caused by events?…stuff like that. why have a few of my old posts suddenly gotten lots of traffic?)

  This is like financial accounting…but for digital marketing. Just like a business of any size (which spends money) needs to do financial accounting – I’d suggest anyone who has made a plan to accomplish something in digital channels – needs to measure progress with analytics. To extend the accounting analogy, when you’re solo you do everything from sales, to accounting, to web analytics. With more growth, there are both more resources and a need to devote resources to tracking.

  I recently visited a well known firm where everyone on their support team was active in social media. 10% of their time (that’s a half day a week) is spent analyzing the traffic they create, and emerging opportunities. What I learned from them is that the more time you spend gaining insights from performance, the more likely you are to make and focus on a clear plan for going forward.

  All the best,
  Dave
• Alex Horton

  November 7, 2010

  Really interesting article,

  Measuring ROI on a brand enhancement campaign through Twitter or Facebook could prove a waste of resources. Simply creating the best quality and most frequent new and interesting social media content is a superb way to spend your time and resources.

  – According to just under three-quarters of agencies surveyed (74%), clients use direct traffic to measure social media activity.

  This is clearly a narrow minded view of measuring the effectiveness, or ROI, on a social media campaign!

  Here are some other interesting statistics on corporate participation in social media strategy

  – A third of companies (32%) do not spend anything on social media marketing and a further 36% spend under $5,000 a year.

  I hope this has given a different slant to your point on Social media and ROI.

  For a full 2010 Value of Social Media report containing statistics and industry trends for 2010 check out: http://ecly.co/9XJLkk