How should you plan and track your social media efforts? How do you know if you're doing well or not? I propose 12 metrics over 74 slides. Delivered in, yes, 12 minutes.
Originally presented at #MSMW2013 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Feb 27, 2013
RoI in social marketing: some metrics. By Mahesh Murthy of Pinstorm
1. Measuring RoI & effectiveness
in social media marketing
@maheshmurthy
2. Return On Investment
can be said to come from
Relevance, Originality, Impact
But that’s not precisely measurable.
Need better metrics.
@maheshmurthy
3. 12 minutes.
12 metrics to live by.
@maheshmurthy
4. 1
HOW LOW IS YOUR AD-SPEND-TO-REVENUE
RATIO? TO BECOME BIG, SPEND LESS.
@maheshmurthy
8. Interbrand’s ‚Top 100 brands 2012‛
1/3rd seem to have been built without
too much spend on media buying.
@maheshmurthy
9. This list doesn’t even include Red Bull,
Twitter, Ferrari, Facebook. The zero-ad-
budget champions.
It’s back to the age of extreme word-of
mouth
@maheshmurthy
10. Increasingly, in more sectors, the winner
has the best word of mouth.
And correspondingly, the lowest ad spend.
@maheshmurthy
11. 2
HOW FAST CAN YOU DIE?
WINNER BRANDS HAVE TO THINK ANTI-FRAGILE.
@maheshmurthy
15. Let’s say a can of Axe deodorant was found
with a cockroach in it.
And a can of Gillette deodorant too was
found with a cockroach in it.
I believe Gillette would be harder affected because
it’s the one making higher claims of greatness.
‚The holier-than-thou, the harder-thy-fall.‛
@maheshmurthy
16. Let’s say there was a similar service issue
(stewardess makes out with passenger on
flight) on Singapore Airlines and on Virgin.
I believe Singapore Airlines would be much harder
hit.
‚The holier-than-thou, the harder-thy-fall.‛
@maheshmurthy
17. Your longevity is increased if you don’t
claim perfection.
The more risk you embrace in your brand
personality, the more resilience to black
swans you’ll gain.
@maheshmurthy
18. 3
WHAT IS YOUR CONTENT-COST-TO-COVERAGE
RATIO?
WINNER BRANDS WILL CUT OUT THE MIDDLEMEN
BETWEEN THEM AND CONSUMERS.
@maheshmurthy
19. Old way:
Brand Research firm Strategy firm
Creative agency Media agency Media house
Media property Editorial / Entertainment
Inserted advertising Consumer
Loss of fidelity, efficiency at each level
New way:
Brand Editorial / Entertainment Consumer
Minimal loss of fidelity. Max efficiency.
@maheshmurthy
21. Red Bull had 5x the global search volume of Coca Cola
during the stunt. And settled down at a level higher than
Pepsi.
@maheshmurthy
22. The brand is the entertainment.
Media may even pay to cover the brand.
No ad film was produced.
No media buy was executed.
$500m+ worth of publicity
on ~$15m worth of investment.
30x
@maheshmurthy
23. 4
HOW SOON WILL YOUR SOCIAL NETWORK DIE?
WINNER BRANDS WILL BUILD NETWORK-NEUTRAL
PRESENCE.
@maheshmurthy
26. When & how brands should participate
Watch Try Wait Exploit & Maintain & Consolidate Prepare to
grow exit &
migrate
@maheshmurthy
27. Facebook seems to have begun its decline
in the US already.
It will also die one day.
What happens to your investment and fans
there?
They’re not portable.
@maheshmurthy
28. Instead of building content on a social
network, build it on your site –
Use ‚f-connect‛ and other such buttons –
and embed it on networks from your site
You should own your fans. Not Facebook.
Be network-neutral.
@maheshmurthy
29. 5
WHAT IS YOUR SHARE OF TRAFFIC FROM SOCIAL?
OVER 50%?
@maheshmurthy
37. Typical / max organic visibility of your Facebook
update across your fan base
80%
16%
12%
2012 2013
@maheshmurthy
38. Typically, less than 1% of your fan base
actually is shown your update (unless you
pay to promote). 99% won’t get it.
At best, about 12% of your fan base will
get to see it.
@maheshmurthy
39. Facebook squelched organic ‛free‛ visibility
to boost short-term revenues to kick-up
stock price.
Every time Facebook needs revenues, it’ll
damp virality further.
When will virality go to zero – and you start
comparing Facebook with Yahoo, where
visibility is 100% fee-dependent?
@maheshmurthy
40. 8
WHAT ARE THE ONLY FACEBOOK STATS THAT
MATTER?
VIRALITY AND ENGAGEMENT
@maheshmurthy
41. Out of a boatload of Facebook analytics…
@maheshmurthy
42. Two really matter – and Facebook doesn’t
compute those. But you can:
Relative virality:
How many non-fans get to organically see updates
divided by total number of fans
i.e. how viral did it go?
Viral attraction:
How many non-fans become fans as a result of
seeing updates organically, divided by total
number of non-fans who saw the updates.
i.e. how compelling was the virality?
@maheshmurthy
45. Then measure engagement
Not as PTAT (people talking about this)
which is a useless number.
@maheshmurthy
46. Engagement Type Metric Norm
E1: Unprompted Posts / fan base 0.05% | 50
E2: Prompted Comments / fan base 0.5% | 500
E3: Passive Likes / fan base 2.5% | 2500
E4: Referral Shares / fan base 0.5% | 500
@maheshmurthy
47. And compare against sectoral peers –
also TG peer brands.
Which you can measure externally, with
no account access
@maheshmurthy
65. Pinstorm has an SLA for $15m in value of
non-negative publicity to be generated
through online reputation management for
one client.
Value apportioned with equivalent CPM
rate for ad spot in medium, with 1:1
editorial to ad valuation
@maheshmurthy
66. 12
WHAT ARE YOUR VIDEO VIRALITY AND COST
METRICS?
THIS IS THE NEXT BIG FRONTIER.
@maheshmurthy
72. Cost of broadcast quality commercials
down from US$250,000 to US$2,500.
100x improvement already.
True break-even will come at US$25, when
the film can make its own cost back thru
ads on 10,000 views.
So, further 100x improvement needed
@maheshmurthy
73. 12 minutes.
12 metrics to live by.
@maheshmurthy