15 ROI Metrics for Social Media

One of the barriers to Social Media investment is the insufficient metrics to measure the impact. That said, I have compiled a quick list of ROI metrics for Social Media. Use them in your campaigns or use them to convince management to make that resource marketing investment.

1. Uniques
2. Page Views
3. Comments and Trackbacks
4. Group creation
5. Time spend on site
6. Bounce Rate (the percentage of initial visitors to a site who "bounce" away to a different site)
7. Active members
8. Connections
9. Completed profiles
10. Friends/Fans
11. Links
12. Diggs
13. ReTweets
14. Return visits
15. Applications/Widget installs

Take a look at the above metrics. Does your sales correlate with the metric data? Keeping track of the data will give you an idea of whats working and whats not working in your Social Media strategy.

How to Measure (ROI) Non-Tangible Social Media Campaigns

Before starting any Social Media effort. DEFINE your goals and targets. Alert: Possible future blog post.



Basic Social Media Campaign KPI (Tangible) measurements:

1. Product sales or qualified leads. New customers acquired. Not included: "converted leads" which are the responsibility of the sales organization or account manager.
2. Increased SERP ranking.
3. Increased revenue, and/or market share.
4. CTR (Click-through rate), etc.

These are just a few basic metrics that you can use to measure your Social Media campaigns. So how do you measure the ever important "non- tangible" Social Media ROI?

1. The quality of "buzz" or change in sentiment. Think Twitter buzz or the quality/quantity of blog feedback/comments. Develop an in-house engagement metric.
2. Amount of relevant people handling digital content.
3. Amount of "followers" or new members after a social media campaign. Not everyone’s social media goals is to sell product. Could be a branding goal or a service type goal.

In the end, Social Media campaign goals must lead to increased revenue, SERP rankings, leads, branding/loyalty, or better service. It’s easy to present the tangible information to your boss or client. Make sure the non-tangible information is measured as well.