In this session James will give you a practical guide through the realities of measuring social media in the B2B environment, looking at the metrics which will define the success of your strategy and determine the ROI.
Session outcomes:
Learn about the different types of measurement, both qualitative and quantitative;
Learn which tools to utilise and how to get the most from them;
Learn what to measure; see practical metrics and how they demonstrate success;
Learn how to measure; which metrics will be most valuable when assessing the success of your strategy.
The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf(CBTL), Business strategy case study
Social Media Measurement - Coast Digital
1. Social Media Measurement
Proving ROI and Measuring Social in the B2B Environment.
James Fairweather of Coast Digital
Marketing you can measure
TM
@J_Fairweather
2. Where are we with social now?
•The B2B sector has embraced social media.
•We‟re getting customer service and support right.
•Many are struggling moving towards acquisition & lead generation.
Marketing you can measure
TM
@J_Fairweather
3. Measuring Success is key
Some of the challenge lies in the breadth of social;
• Customer service
• Marketing & PR
• Market research
• Business development
• HR & Recruitment
The difficulty is in selecting relevant metrics beyond followers and shares to
represent success in these areas.
Marketing you can measure
TM
@J_Fairweather
4. Measuring Success
•Marketers are still unsure how to calculate social media ROI.
•The bigger picture; would you measure the ROI from your telephone line?
•B2B marketers need to understand the value in what people are doing to justify
resource on social media.
•Biggest mistake is not considering what success and failure look like early
enough. IBM mantra; Fail, fast.
Marketing you can measure
TM
@J_Fairweather
5. What are people measuring?
•Confusion between social media data, metrics (and KPIs) for ROI
•Last touch & direct conversion metrics.
•Vanity metrics.
Marketing you can measure
TM
@J_Fairweather
6. Vanity Metrics
•Follows
•Number of „Fans‟
•Likes
•Shares
• Visits
•„Influence‟ scores like Klout
Marketing you can measure
TM
@J_Fairweather
7. Vanity Metrics – Some Pitfalls
•Hundreds of distracting social data points to wade through.
•Most of this data is actually nothing but “data puke”. - Avinash Kaushik
•Analysing this data is risky - they can hide the insights needed to understand
what actions to take.
•They can be relevant, however they don‟t always represent reality and mislead
from meaningful measurement.
Marketing you can measure
TM
@J_Fairweather
8. Vanity Metrics – Some Pitfalls
•Reach, isn‟t really powerful unless you consider ‘influencer identification‟.
•Discover the most influential people in your networks and map them.
•Go on to build relationships online with those people.
•Track the quality of these engagements.
Marketing you can measure
TM
@J_Fairweather
9. Vanity Metrics – Some Pitfalls
There can be a place for vanity metrics as part of a set of KPI‟s alongside other data.
Look into some of the metrics from in those tools, for example;
1. Reach & velocity.
2. # Of Retweets Per Thousand Followers, as measure of efficiency.
3. Messages Per Outbound Message, a measure of two way conversation, not just
broadcast.
Marketing you can measure
TM
@J_Fairweather
10. Last Touch Analytics
• Last touch attribution doesn‟t allow Social Media activity to be credited with
keeping conversation going and leads „warm‟.
• If the final „visit‟ to the site isn‟t from a social source, last touch model doesn‟t
credit it at all.
Marketing you can measure
TM
@J_Fairweather
11. What should you really be doing?
• Map metrics to business objectives
• Some metrics to consider
• Consider impact of social on SEO
• Create effective dashboards
• Use the right tools
Marketing you can measure
TM
@J_Fairweather
12. Map Metrics to Business Objectives
•Focus on choosing a few metrics to use as your KPI‟s in the context of your
business.
•These should form the basis of your measurement framework and will map back
to your business and marketing goals.
•These KPI‟s should lead to action!
Marketing you can measure
TM
@J_Fairweather
13. Map Metrics to Business Objectives
•Consider the impact of having a great customer service team.
•What is the ROI from not losing a customer?
•Or reducing your volume of call centre complaint calls by 50%.
These are tangible objectives and have associated costs and savings.
ROI calculation needs to account for how much better your customer
service is.
Marketing you can measure
TM
@J_Fairweather
14. How do IBM do it?
IBM look at 4 metrics and not a vanity metric in sight!
1) # of leads
2) $ leads
3) Win revenue
4) Win rate
„Listening for leads‟ casr study; seeking out leads on twitter for IBM;
http://www.emarketer.com/blog/index.php/case-study-ibm-drives-millions-dollars-worth-
sales-leads-social-media/
Marketing you can measure
TM
@J_Fairweather
15. What should you really be doing?
• Map metrics to business objectives
• Some metrics to consider
• Consider impact of social on SEO
• Create effective dashboards
• Use the right tools
Marketing you can measure
TM
@J_Fairweather
16. Some metrics to consider
Volume of conversation and share of voice – what proportions?
Social graphing - tools like Rapleaf can analyse your email database
Sentiment - analyse conversations around how your brand is portrayed.
Paid Value of Traffic – what cost might equivalent paid traffic be?
On site impact on social – do social visitors behave differently on site?
Lost Customer Value - what impact does a lost customer have socially?
Customer Lifetime Value – consider the impact of increased CLV.
Marketing you can measure
TM
@J_Fairweather
17. Planning a strategy
1. Review and learn what works. Keep testing, React and refine.
2. Use A/B testing where you can to optimise performance.
3. Drop things that don‟t work and invest in a steady stream of new initiatives.
4. Always consider time as a key component. Social data may be instantly
available, but building a brand is a timely process.
5. Establish milestones and re-evaluate regularly.
Marketing you can measure
TM
@J_Fairweather
18. What should you really be doing?
• Map metrics to business objectives
• Some metrics to consider
• Consider impact of social on SEO
• Create effective dashboards
• Use the right tools
Marketing you can measure
TM
@J_Fairweather
19. Social as a ranking signal for SEO
Marketing you can measure
TM
@J_Fairweather
20. 300 million twitter users.
Over 845 Million active Facebook users.
170 million Google Plus sign-ups.
Search engines can‟t afford to ignore this volume of usage.
Marketing you can measure
TM
@J_Fairweather
21. “In the past year, traffic from social has grown from 3% - 27%”
via @timgentry
Marketing you can measure
TM
@J_Fairweather
22. Social as a ranking signal for SEO
“We do look at the social authority of a user. This can add a little
weight to a listing in regular search results.”
“Yes, we do use it as a signal. It is used as a signal in our organic and
news rankings.”
“The purpose of any ranking signal is to improve overall search quality.
For +1’s and other social ranking signals, as with any new ranking
signal, we‟ll be starting carefully and learning how those signals are
related to quality.”
Marketing you can measure
TM
@J_Fairweather
23. Social Media Optimisation
What are the effects of this cross-over now?
Marketing you can measure
TM
@J_Fairweather
25. What should you really be doing?
• Map metrics to business objectives
• Some metrics to consider
• Consider impact of social on SEO
• Create effective dashboards
• Use the right tools
Marketing you can measure
TM
@J_Fairweather
26. Use effective dashboards
1. Establish your analytics suite and form a good work-flow process
2. There are hundreds of tools and dashboards out there. Trial and test to find
the ones that work for you.
3. Establish a good mix of tools & services that can form your measurement
toolbox and automate where you can.
4. Some can integrate with CRM and other internal systems.
Don’t forget: social media monitoring is about a "team" rather than a "tool"
Marketing you can measure
TM
@J_Fairweather
27. An example strategy
Metrics KPI’s
Dashboard – ROI Reporting
Reach
KPI
Reduced
Phone
Reliance KPI
Shares KPI
Marketing you can measure
TM
28. What should you really be doing?
• Map metrics to business objectives
• Some metrics to consider
• Consider impact of social on SEO
• Create effective dashboards
• Use the right tools
Marketing you can measure
TM
@J_Fairweather
29. Tools & Takeouts
The key to getting Social media „right‟ is more in strategy rather than the toolset.
In many ways, social monitoring is about a "team" rather than a "tool“.
However.... there are good services out there that can speed the management
side of social media up.
“Only 23% of UK marketers said they were able to update multiple channels from
one dashboard.” (Econsultancy)
Marketing you can measure
TM
@J_Fairweather
33. Tools & Takeouts – Some useful tools
Hootsuite – http://www.hootsuite.com Social Media management dashboard
Tweetdeck – http://www.tweetdeck.com Facebook & Twitter account management
Twitsprout - https://twitsprout.com Twitter & Facebook reporting (although primarily Twitter)
Tweetreach - http://tweetreach.com/ Twitter reach metrics, statistics and analysis
Radian 6 - http://www.radian6.com/ Social media monitoring tools & social media engagement software
Alterian - http://www.alterian.com/ Social Conversation management
Brandwatch - http://www.brandwatch.com/ Social Media monitoring platform
Social Bro - http://www.socialbro.com/ Twitter management dashboard
Buffer (web client) - http://bufferapp.com/ Post scheduling tool
Addictomatic - http://addictomatic.com/ Buzz monitoring tool
Icerocket - http://www.icerocket.com/ Meltwater buzz monitoring
Argyle - http://argylesocial.com Enterprise social marketing platform
Sprout - http://sproutsocial.com/ Social Media management platform
Buto.tv - http://get.buto.tv/ Web Video measurement platform
Marketing you can measure
TM
@J_Fairweather
34. Wrapping it up
Choose careful metrics & map to KPI‟s.
Measure them meticulously.
Calculate ROI as you would any other channel.
Review regularly & learn.
One size doesn‟t fit all.
Social should be a platform to support a comprehensive
and interesting content strategy.
Marketing you can measure
TM
@J_Fairweather
35. Social Media Optimisation
Private LinkedIn group for Q&A, http://linkd.in/socialmediaROIgroup
We've also got a free Social Media guide for the B2B marketer. If you'd like a copy,
connect with us online or leave some details.
james.fairweather@coastdigital.co.uk
linkedin.com/jamesfairweather
twitter.com/j_fairweather
Marketing you can measure
TM
Notas del editor
I was asked what my angle on Social Media was this week; Caught me off guard. There’s no space to have a positive or a negative ‘angle’, it’s here, we have to adapt.Moving from customer retention towards lead generation and acquisitionWe’re getting customer service and support right socially but not acquisition. lead generation especially. Specifically the difficulty in selecting the most valuable metrics beyond follower and direct conversion metrics.
lead generation especially. Specifically the difficulty in selecting the most valuable metrics beyond follower and direct conversion metrics. One of the hardest challenges in measuring how effective social is in this split in use; customer service, marketing, business development.
Is it fair to measure in the same way you do with search traffic? Yes. No. . don't forget social visitors aren't exactly the same as pre-qualified search visitors, however they’re still a traffic driver, like banners, email and any other digital media. Does this mean you should be wary of carrying out social? NO. You have no choice. Go where your customers are. Audience expectations; How they are changing with the rise of social media in B2B.
It’s in the action you can carry out as a result of the metric.
It’s in the action you can carry out as a result of the metric.
It’s in the action you can carry out as a result of the metric.
So sit down and work out what you are trying to achieve and the KPIs that will give you an indication as to whether you are succeeding or not.
What is the value of transforming a negative experience into a positive one?Image credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/59937401@N07/5929622407/
Use social monitoring tools to capture sentiment but then try to get to the root cause.
Often people ask about tools. Here is the list I keep that come up frequently. Some paid, some free. Tools that come up a lot. No point in going through all, but useful. You’ll be able to get a copy of this deck, so don’t worry!
I’ve set up a private LinkedIn group specifically for this session which you can join if you would like to discuss any specific points raised.