Prove Social Media Revenue Impact In 5 Steps -- And Get More Budget. And while social media brings value across the whole organization (more on this later), today, I’m going to show you exactly how to figure out the revenue impact. This video shows some of the highlights from our talk and below, I have broken down the five steps we took to measure and prove that social media is a powerful revenue driver — if you can measure it properly. Too many times social media marketers narrow their metrics to only include social channel growth and engagements. Social should be creating impact across all aspects of your business. It’s a cross-functional channel and needs to be measured that way. At our agency, often times, clients want an off-the-cuff answer to what should they measure. These are unique metrics for this company. Too many people think you can’t track social. For our clients, we create a tracking code link generator tool to make things as easy as possible.
for IBM
If you are one of the many marketers still fighting to get
social media funded appropriately at your organization — this is
for you. As a recovering corporate executive, I’ll tell you flat
out, if you can’t tie your social media results to revenue, you
won’t get your program funded well. Period. And while social media
brings value across the whole organization (more on this later),
today, I’m going to show you exactly how to figure out the revenue
impact. Let’s get started.
Recently, I wrote a post called “Busting
the Myth on Social Media ROI“; if you haven’t read it, the
summary is: “Stop listening to anyone who tells you that social
media can’t generate revenue. What those people are really telling
you is that they simply don’t know how.” If that post was
the “why” you need to be measuring social, this post is the
“how.”
At the last Women
In Technology International (WITI) Summit, then CMO and Head of
Product of YouCaring.com,
Aimen Barma* and I first opened the kimono on this topic, sharing
deep insights into a recent case study where
we drove a 30% increase in pageviews on YouCaring.com, a 400%
increase in new fundraisers created, and a whopping 3500% increase
in donation revenue month-over-month using organic/earned social
media alone.
This
video shows some of the highlights from our talk and below, I
have broken down the five steps we took to measure and prove that
social media is a powerful revenue driver — if you can measure it
properly.
Step 1. Talk across the organization.
Too many times social media marketers narrow their metrics to
only include social channel growth and engagements. Social should
be creating impact across all aspects of your business. It’s a
cross-functional channel and needs to be measured that way. Social
can impact marketing, sales, PR, hiring, employee advocacy and
product development. Before you decide on your metrics, do your
homework. Understand all the possible places social can/should
impact your unique business and then talk to your department heads
and agree on which metrics matter to them. Most often, your company
will want you to show revenue growth, which is what we have focused
on in this case study; however, when going through this process, it
is highly recommended that you take a cross-channel view of social
metrics.
With this project, Aimen was in a unique position as Head of
Product and CMO, giving her the ability to look at social from a
more holistic point of view than most. In my more than 10 years of
experience leading social programs, I have found often marketing
“owns” social which can sometimes limit the scope of the value.
Don’t let this limited view limit you or social. Doing this
exercise to determine all the potential metrics will allow
you the opportunity to break through these limitations within your
organization.
Step 2. Choose your key performance indicators
(KPIs).
While it is important to measure the full impact of social on
the organization, be careful not to get lost in the data.There are
hundreds of different things you can measure, have you ever
exported Facebook insights? Their are close to a hundred metrics
available on that platform alone.
Once you know which areas of the…
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