How do you know if you are successful using Social Media?  While the answer a few years ago may have been it’s so experimental, we’ll have to see, the answer from some today is similarly dissatisfying:  Social Media ROI is comparable to computing the ROI of a telephone.

We can do better than this – we are no longer in the age of experimentation.

Consider these four approaches:

Relative to plan:  Before embarking on any digital program, forecast the impact of your efforts:  how many page views, likes, new connections, user-generated submissions, sentiment, comments, tweets, retweets, or shares are you expecting?  And in the real world, what are you expecting in terms of real-world change: decreased customer service phone or email volume, increased leads, or increased product sales?  You need not forecast everything – just what is important to you and your organization.  Forecasting specific numbers at the outset puts a stake in the ground, and improves accountability… measurably.

Change from prior period:  Instead of a comparison to plan, consider measuring growth over time.  Be careful though: the growth number is only useful when the investment (time and budget) are also compared over the same period. A 50% year-over-year growth in Twitter followers is meaningless if the work effort to achieve the growth grew by 200%.

Relative to an industry benchmark:  A 15% return might seem great, but if everyone else is getting 30%, then 15% is not very good at all.  The social web has been around for a few years now, and benchmarks, common practices, and rules-of-thumb are just now starting to become more common.  While a bit out of date today, we had published several national surveys of 400+ associations and not-for-profits; the benchmarks were invaluable.

Business impact:  It’s far more powerful when an online activity directly impacts a real business measure – something that is on the financial statements, either revenue or cost.  Some examples: Increased sales due to a YouTube campaign. The effectiveness of Twitter to reduce call center volume. The reduction in recruitment fees when using LinkedIn.

While all four measurement approaches are valuable, business impact measures are by far the most.  If you are tracking relative to plan, to changes, or to industry benchmarks, follow the measure back to the impact on the business itself.  If it doesn’t impact the business, then why measure it at all?

Does this topic resonate? Reach out to Randall: he can present it to your group.  (More presentation topics)
Download Randall’s professional credentials: Speaker credentials one-sheet or Management Advisory credentials.

Content Authenticity Statement: 100% original content: no AI was used in creating this content.

@RandallCraig (Follow me for daily insights)
www.RandallCraig.com: Professional credentials site.