Bridging the Gap 2011 – The Mystery of Social Media ROI
Audience at Bridging the Gap 2011. Photo courtesy of @joselinmane.
At Bridging the Gap 2011 – Social Media Conference , which took place at Suffolk University, I had the opportunity to learn about social media ROI. Paul Gillin, author of The New Influencers, Secrets of Social Media Marketing, and Social Marketing to the Business Customer, was the presenter on this topic.
Basics of Social Media ROI
Your school’s Facebook page may have 2,500 “likes” or your school’s Twitter account may have 15,000 followers, but these numbers are not ROI. In addition, website visitors, impressions, click-through rates, and blog comments are not ROI. These statistics aren’t irrelevant, but the only way they can be considered ROI is if you can quantify their financial impact. To measure the financial impact you will need historical metrics, excellent CRM tools and practices, and clearly understood and applied web analytics.
ROI without Getting into the Math
I am not going to touch upon any equations. I would like to share some information I learned and found to be extremely valuable though:
-It isn’t about the demographics anymore, it’s about behaviors.
-Segmentation and grouping must be enabled. It is important to understand the characteristics of each prospective student.
-Track how leads get to your website.
-Determine which pages on your website are the most visited, and then optimize them to convert into a desirable action.
-Make sure the most visited pages on your website have a form to capture email addresses of prospects.
-Be sure to document all online, offline, and landline communication with every lead.
-Use unique URLs to track where prospects and leads are coming from.
Marketing Takeaway
Remember, if you can measure it then you can calculate its ROI.
