HOW TO PROVE YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA WORKS

Ariana Torres, PhDMarketing Specialist

Purdue University

Agenda§ Is your business getting anything out of its social media

engagement?§ Some key words in social media ROI§ Measuring your social media ROI

1. Define why you want to do social media for your business2. Set measurable goals3. Track goals4. Track social media expenses (per campaign)5. Calculate campaign-specific ROI

§ How to improve your ROI§ An argument for using both organic and paid social media

Is your business getting anything out of its social media engagement?§ Measuring return on investment (ROI) is the number one challenge of

social marketers§ What does ROI really mean? It is brand awareness, number of

followers, engagement rate, customer satisfaction, lead to conversion, or…

§ Not everything you do in social media has an immediate effect into $§ Yet, it is important to track impact of time and resources that go into

your social media efforts

§ Your social media goals will determine what you will measure à metrics• Every campaign needs a goal, and every goal needs a metric

§ Metrics will prove if your campaign is being successful, if you have to change or pivot something

§ Each social media platform has its analytics • Facebook à Insights• Twitter à Twitter analytics• Instagram à Insights

Some key words§ Engagement: likes, shares, followers, comments

§ Reach: how many people have viewed your content

§ Impressions: how many times your posts show up in a feeds/timeline and may connect to your audience

§ Conversions: lead conversion rate is how many people “buy” something

§ Social proofing: people copy others behavior, i.e. if a friend buys this, it must be good

MEASURING YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA ROI

1. Define why you want to do social media for your business§ Raising brand awareness• There is more to social than just pushing products or services• Customer service (massive ROI)• Community building

§ Promoting good and services

2. Set measurable goals

§ Main goals• Email list sign-ups• Fill contact form • Trials• View video• Spend time on website• Sign up for newsletter• Online purchases• Downloads

§ Secondary goals:• Shares• Followers• Traffic• Likes

§ You need to keep a close eye on your goals and your metrics

§ Set up social media campaigns to individual links to accurately track metrics• Use the bio on Instagram to share the link of your

campaign • Examples are: Bitly, Curalate, and Google’s URL

builder

Make goals/metrics campaign-specific

3. Track goals§ Check how/if your visitors are taking action § An example with Google Analytics• Acquisition > Social > Conversions

Destination URL not

indexed in Google

Google Analytics• What channels give you the most website traffic.• What content succeeds on multiple platforms.• Leads and conversions from your social media channels.

Metrics1. Brand awareness2. Audience growth metrics3. Post reach4. Potential reach5. Social share of voice (SSoV)6. Applause rate7. Average engagement rate8. Amplification rate9. Virality rate

10. Conversion rate11. Click-Through rate (CTR)12. Bounce rate13. Cost-per-click (CPC)14. Cost per thousand impressions (CPM)15. Social media conversion rate16. Conversation rate17. Customer testimonials18. Customer satisfaction score (CSat)19. Net promoter score (NPS)

Customer metrics

Conversion metrics

Engagement metrics

Awareness metrics

Audience growth rate is how quickly you gain followers counted !"# $"% &'(('%")*+'#,( ,-./"$0" 1100

Avg engagement rate : likes, shares, comments +'#,( "$4,4"5"$#+'#,( &'(('%")* 1 100Facebook and Twitter have lower rates (<1%) compared to Instagram (>5%)

Post reach= 7",08 */$0" 9'*# %"$# (/:"+'#,( &'(('%")* 1100

Use “When Fans are Online” tool on Facebook to determine optimal time to post

Conversion rate: measures how valuable is the content you post and how compelling is for the audience !"#$%&'("#')"*+, -,(-.' /100

Conversions = subscribe to newsletter, download, register, or buy.

Click-through rate: how often people click on a call-to-action link on your post and go to another source (website) )"*+, -,(-.'

)"*+, (23&%''("#' /100

Cost-per-click: the $ of each click in paid advertising, which is more relevant that the total amount 45 '3%#5)"*+, -,(-.' /100

Customer testimonials: any review, assessment, comment, endorsement, or interview related to your brand. If your brand makes people happy, they will share it with others

• Ask best customers to leave a review• Run a social media campaign that encourages people to create written, video, or online

testimonials• Link your Google My Business review for to make leaving testimonials a seamless process

Customer satisfaction score: how happy people are with your product by asking customers “How would you describe your overall satisfaction with this product?” and ask them to rate satisfaction from 1-10. You can also post a poll in your social media channels.

4. Track social media expenses (per campaign)

§ Time

§ Money invested on content• Outsourced to content creator• Professional copywriter• If it is yourself- then count as your time

§ Money invested on tools

§ Cost of paid advertising = cost-per-click

5. Calculate campaign-specific ROI

§ Earnings is tricky because it can mean anything1. Lifetime value X conversion rate• Lifetime value =

!"# $%&'( )*"*+,* -*) .%/-%&#+

!"# +,/0*) 12 ,3*)34 54657859 :;<58;=5 >< ?@5A@

• Conversion rate = B1+"*)3&1+3C1D%' .'&.E3

4100

2. Average sales per campaign

HIJ =5LAM;MN@ − 7>@8@ 4100

7>@8@

ExampleIf your average

lifetime customer value is $200, and you know than 1 in

20 people who view your video/post

become customers, then the value of getting a visitor is

$10 or $200/20

Other ways to calculate earnings

§ Track conversions• Reach: the number of followers in each platform over a period of time

• Traffic: the number of visitors to your website or another URL

• Leads: the ratio of leads coming from each referring site to your website

• Customers: number of social media-generated leads that become customers• Conversion rate: percentage of visitors by social media platform

§ Assign monetary value to each conversion• Using historical data: LTV (previous slide)

• Guesstimating: How much are you willing to pay for 1,000 signups to your newsletter?

How to improve your ROI§ Which types of content are your top performers?§ When are you getting the most engagement?§ Use social media management tools to mine your data§ Run test campaigns

Use social media analytics tools§ Hootsuite: every platform and easy reports

§ Buffer: similar to Hootsuite

§ Sprout social§ UTM parameters: web traffic and conversions from social media§ Brandwatch: track and analyze social networks, blogs, forums and

review sites

An argument for using both organic and paid social media

§ Recent Facebook algorithm limits the reach of organic posts, and most businesses are carrying both strategies

§ You need an organic strategy if you want to succeed with paid ads

§ Organic: promote without sales pitch spamming audience• Raising brand awareness

§ Sponsored: call-to-action sales-oriented posts

So many brands are killing it with organic and paid campaigns

§ Customers nowadays expect to see social media presence • Brand awareness• Customer service• Offer products• Share information

§ Businesses that are using social media effectively are able to track and improve campaigns

SHAREABLE INSPIRATION CALL-TO-ACTION

When should you pay for a social media campaign?

You will reach potential customers beyond the algorithms by putting your post front and center in their feed1. When you target a specific demographic

2. When promoting a major project3. Raising awareness beyond organic reach

Source: Sproutsocial.com

What makes a compelling CTA (call-to-action)§ What actions would fit your company’s social

media• Creating an account• Requesting a quote• Entering a promotion• RSVP for an event• Registering for an event• Request a trial• Purchase

The button or link that kicks off the next step for your audience

The CTA message§ Strong action words

• Sign up for your free trial• Download my guide• Get your free instant quote

§ Convey urgency – appeal to FOMO• Call us today!• Register before it fills up!

§ Keep trying

CALL-TO-ACTION

10 additional examples of CTAs1. Read the full article here2. Don’t miss our lightning sale3. Take the tour4. Pre-order and receive a 10% discount5. Download the full report6. Get a quote7. Start your free trial8. Avoid these mistakes9. Purchase our best sale of the year10. See our new products/services

THANK YOUAriana Torrestorres2@purdue.edu@hortbizpurdue

1. Brand awareness is the attention your brand gets via @mentions, shares, links, and impressions over periods such as week, month, or quarter

2. Audience growth rate is how quickly you gain followers counted !"# $"% &'(('%")*

+'#,( ,-./"$0"1100

3. Post reach= 5",06 */$0" 7'*# %"$# (/8"

+'#,( &'(('%")*1100

4. Potential reach is 2-5% of theoretical reach à use social media analytics tool9:;<=> ?@ ;=ABC?AD 1 @?EE?F=>D ?@ GHH?:AB BℎGB ;=ABC?A=J K?: = Lℎ=?>=BCHGE >=GHℎ

5. Social share of voice is how many people are mentioning your brand compared to competitors. use social media analytics tool

• Mentions can be @hortbizpurdue or “hortbizpurdue”

• M'-) N"$#/'$*O0'N7"#/#') N"$#/'$*

+'#,( N"$#/'$*x100 = SSoC percentage

Use “When Fans are Online” tool on Facebook to determine optimal time to post

6. Applause rate: likes, favorites !"#$% $&&'"($% $)#*"+,!"#$% -"%%"./', 0 100

7. Avg engagement rate : likes, shares, comments !"#$% /+3$3/4/+#!"#$% -"%%"./', 0 100• Facebook and Twitter have lower rates (<1%) compared to Instagram (>5%)

8. Amplification rate: rate in which followers amplify your content !"#$% 5",# 67$'/,!"#$% -"%%"./', 0 100

9. Virality rate: the real impact of likes 894:/' "- ,7$'/,894:/' "- *4&'/,,*"+, 0 100

• Impressions are the number of times a post is displayed, no matter if it was clicked or not and it means that content was delivered to someone’s feed, but does not translate to engagement.

10. Conversion rate: measures how valuable is the content you post and how compelling is for the audience !"#$%&'("#')"*+, -,(-.' /100• Conversions = subscribe to newsletter, download, register, or buy.

11. Click-through rate: how often people click on a call-to-action link on your post and go to another source (website) )"*+, -,(-.'

)"*+, (23&%''("#' /10012. Bounce rate: shows the percentage of visitors who click in a post but leave with no action• Set up Google Analytics > “Acquisition” tab > “All Traffic” > ”Channels”• ”Bounce rate” will rank all channels

13. Cost-per-click: the $ of each click in paid advertising, which is more relevant that the total amount 45 '3%#5

)"*+, -,(-.' /10014. Cost per thousand impressions: $ per thousand people scrolling past your paid ad 45 '3%#5

)"*+, +5 (23&%''("#' /10015. Social media conversion rate: conversions coming from social media over all conversions

16. Conversation rate: how much your audience is compelled to add their voice to your posts )"*+, -"22%#*')"*+, 6",,"7%&' /100