How to Measure Return on Investment on Social Media

Working on getting social media over the line as a key marketing strategy, but your boss or your business partner or the direct marketing guru just isn’t on board? 

Sit back, relax and listen up as we go through how you can measure social media ROI (and, as a result, make it a major driver for your business going forward).

Measure your brand building presence

You’re either on it, or you’re not. And when you are, and when you do it well, the brand awareness and community building is unparalleled.

Suddenly you’re part of conversations about your business and your area that you didn’t know existed. When you don’t have a social media presence, this inhibits any two-way conversation with your customers. Knowing them, and what they want is so important.

To know if your audience are following and interacting with you, being ‘on’ social media gives you the ability to learn from and implement targeting and advertising techniques that traditional marketing doesn’t offer. Learn more about using Facebook ads to generate leads.

Audit and track numbers across all platforms

When doing a full audit of your digital marketing, use what you already have. To some, they’re just vanity metrics, but it’s all part of your social media growth strategy.

• How many ‘fans’ or ‘likes’ do you have on Facebook?
• How many subscribers to your email list from social media?
• What is your engagement rate on Instagram?

After asking these questions, add the results into a spreadsheet to analyse month-on-month. Knowing if you’re growing or not will help influence where to spend your time (and money) next when it comes to your social media strategy.

Set specific goals for your brand’s marketing campaigns

Social media should be a part of your larger marketing strategy. When measuring its impact, think in terms of the campaigns you’re currently working on. Although social shares, followers and website traffic are worth tracking, it is the goals you achieve that are based on defined actions that equal ROI.

To set goals within your marketing plan, end with an action, for example:

• Ticket or event purchases
• Email list sign-ups
• Contact form inquiries
• Product purchases
• Download of an eGuide or video series

By having a tangible end goal, rather than a social media metric, you can measure if your efforts on Facebook or Instagram are actually working for your business.

Link your business goals to your social media metrics

Beyond the vanity metrics, even if you use them for growth measuring, you need to build a strong business case for using social media -- but, what do you measure if it’s not likes or followers?

Other metrics to consider measuring:

• Reach (how far is your message being spread?)
• Engagement (is anyone interacting with / sharing your content?)
• Website traffic (is your content moving followers to your website?)
• Leads generated (are forms being filled out? Emails sent via Instagram or Facebook?)
• Email list growth (how many subscribers are coming from social media?)

For every metric that you’re considering measuring for ROI on social media, ask yourself:

• Does this align with, or contribute to, our wider marketing strategy?
• Does it help with our business decision making?
• Can I measure this effectively or does this metric need more work?

Measure the money you’re spending

Seems obvious, but for some, their spending on social media is all over the place & non-measurable. It’s ad campaigns here and there, no tools or ALL the tools, one social media manager or everyone doing their part.

So, how can you accurately measure how much it actually costs to run all your social media accounts and campaigns?

• Investment in tools & platforms: social media, on the basic level, is free. It is free to use both Facebook & Instagram, but are you using a monthly scheduling tool? A premium version of a free app?
• Social media advertising budget: per campaign or per day, set a limit on your Facebook advertising campaigns and measure the ROI each month (i.e. what is charged to the company credit card v. how much $ do you receive from the offer / event?).
• Employees working on your social media: is it one member of staff or multiple members that manage your accounts? Determine how long they’re spending per day on each network and measure it against your goals and metrics for social media. Give each member a specific KPI to focus on, e.g. increasing website traffic from social media or managing campaigns on Facebook Ads Manager.
• Creating original content for social media: just like hiring a writer for your blog, there is a cost involved in being original on social media. For example, a photographer or videographer for the visuals, a copywriter for the sales & ad copy, a branding specialist to guide the content.

Unsure how to measure your business’ return on investment on social media? We’ve got the team and the tools to help. Send us an inquiry today!

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