I have read a few social media gurus that have stated that you can’t measure the ROI in social media. One even equated it to measuring the ROI of your mother. We at VA Partners think you should treat Social Media like other sales and marketing activities. Social Media effort and many of the tools are free, but the time to work on it is not. If you don’t create a plan and targets, how will you know if you are being successful.
Here's what I've determined…
As an example some of the benefits that VA Partners has experienced using Social Media include:
- 3 Deals closed that Originated from Social Media
- $150,000 Opportunities in the Funnel from Social Media
- 50+ Meetings booked where the first touch point was Social Media
- 25%+ Visits to www.vapartners.ca
When setting goals it is often best to set a mix of activity goals and results goals. They should all be quantifiable. The easiest to measure is likes, connections, and follows. This is a good indicator of activity, but not necessarily of success. Some of the suggested goals could include;
- Spending a set amount of time a week on social media
- Blog target
- Number of posts to social media
- Visits to your site through social media
- Meetings booked that originated from social media
- Opportunities in your funnel that originated in social media
- Sales from Social Media
There are lots of tools available to help with measurement including but not limited to;
- Google Analytics and other website analytics tools
- Linkedin Analytics
- Social Media tools including Postrank (add link to site)
- Your CRM by tagging where leads and opportunities originate
Set goals and measure the results to determine the ROI in social media that your company is doing.
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