Hello Everyone,

So I just posted recently about some activity my company had engaged in, and some quick thoughts on the results.

Which had me thinking… what ratios are the most important to analyze in social media? What are your goals? How do you evaluate whether to start a social media project or not? Below I’ve started a conversation, and I’d love to hear more from the smart brains on here! You don’t have to copy formatting or anything, and stream of consciousness is encouraged!

Favorites
Who doesn’t love ROI? I disagree that you can’t track social media ROI, because you know how much time you’ve invested into social media, how much you’re spending on advertisement, and how much of those clicks and likes are hitting your website and purchasing what you’re selling (if you have it set up right). But what else do you love?

Issues
Again, measurements are great, but one issue I have: no one is willing to set out industry benchmarks. Is a 0.038 engagement on a Facebook post good? Bad? Indifferent? How do you know? There is a real lack of comparative statistical studies out there on Facebook engagement at different points within the marketplace. I’d like to see more white papers/ebooks focus on actual data and case studies and not just general tips.

So please add your thoughts! I’d like to know what others think!

Jason

Jason, ROI is going to differ from company to company.   You need to measure stats based on what the goal is.

For example, if I measure social media based on lead generation, it would be considered to be a complete failure since I don’t use social media to generate leads. 

I would suggest writing down the exact results that you’re trying to get from social media then look for the tools to identify the results. 

For example, if I advertise on Facebook, I would do split beta testing of both groups and ads.  I would measure the leads that come in based on the ads over a period of time.  That will let me know if it was successful enough for what I spent. 

.pinimage_reset {border: 0 none !important;margin: 0 !important;padding: 0 !important;text-align: left;}#pinimage_pinner{background:url(resource://jid0-xaabacbjebkv5me8iesrpgdl66w-at-jetpack/easypinner-for-pinterest/data/32.png) no-repeat;width:32px;height:32px;position:absolute;z-index:99999;display:none;cursor:pointer}#pinimage_overlay{position: fixed;top: 0;right: 0;bottom: 0;left: 0;z-index: 100000;background-color: black;opacity: 0.8;display:none;}.pinimage_slideup{-webkit-transition: top 0.3s ease-out;-moz-transition: top 0.3s ease-out;top: -300px;}.pinimage_modal {position: fixed;left: 50%;z-index: 100001;overflow: auto;width: 652px;height:290;margin: -145px 0 0 -326px !important;background-color: white;border: 1px solid rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.3) !important;-webkit-border-radius: 6px;-moz-border-radius: 6px;border-radius: 6px;-webkit-box-shadow: 0 3px 7px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.3);-moz-box-shadow: 0 3px 7px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.3);box-shadow: 0 3px 7px rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.3);-webkit-background-clip: padding-box;-moz-background-clip: padding-box;background-clip: padding-box;}.pinimage_modal-in{top: 50%;}.pinimage_modal-body{margin: 10px !important;}

@annfurnivall Ann! How are you doing? First: that is awesome that your customers do that for you. And I love your FB page, so I can see why. And I agree, more benchmarks to judge internal efforts would be great. We don’t sell online either, but that is due to regulations. If we could, we would! However, I know that a lot of people do sell online. Have you ever looked at E-Bay for some of your stock?

@moneyandrisk Hello Kim! Thank you for your reply! ROI is always different from company to company, but that’s not the only ratio out there. And posted ROI from marketing activities for similar companies could be used as a metric to judge internal results when presenting to boards and committees. When I worked in manufacturing, we often looked at our FAT (Fixed Asset Turnover) as a quick snapshot of how well we were converting our assets into profit. This ratio could then be compared to publicly traded companies to determine if we were doing well or poorly as a ratio in isolation is not meaningful. ROI or ROA would both be appropriate, I believe, for social media analysis, and could then be reported to help develop benchmarks. I do agree that you have to set a goal, and then you have to measure that goal, you’re spot on there, but if I can then say to management, we achieved a 0.456 ratio on our lead generation through online social media advertisement, which is 0.23 higher then the industry average, then that shows 1) we achieved our goals, and 2) we’re more efficient/successful then our competitors. That is kind of what I’m hoping to build here. But yes, you need to clearly spell out what you want to do, and then look for comparable examples, just as you would for stocks (if Beta is the sole factor you’re looking at, then you can compare Beta across a wide range of stocks and get what you want). Does that make more sense?

@prestonodenbrett Hello Preston! Time, as with any asset, is measurable. I measure it when reporting back to management. On average, 25% of my time per week is spent on social media efforts. It fluctuates, but that is the average. Just as I can calculate the time I work on a television spot (research, writing, effort, filming, party afterwards (most important part!)). As for junk information on Facebook, I couldn’t agree more. Facebook needs to improve their reporting stats (reach is an almost meaningless stat as far as I can tell – and I’d rather just here about actionable data instead of “Look how many people we have access too”). One of the reasons to establish benchmarks would be to let people know what to look for, so it would also provide an educational use as well!