Measuring Social Media ROI: Social Web Is Good For Business

Jen Consalvo Dec 12, 2010 Tweet

Go to any tech conference these days and you can be pretty sure there will be at least one session on Social Media ROI. And it will be packed. And you may or may not learn anything. But good marketers know that it’s all about tracking key metrics.

One large company that decided to implement social media and then track their ROI based on traffic and conversions is Samsung. The company relaunched their website a few months ago with a focus on consumer engagement, driving social media experiences and online community participation. According to DC-based agency JESS3, by adding a number of new features including consumer reviews, Q&As and Twitter and Facebook buttons, “Samsung allowed the consumer to feel like he or she was part of a larger community of consumers, but also make a direct link between the brand and the consumer.”

After observing statistics from the Samsung.com homepage redesign over a 75 day period post-September launch, JESS3 created an infographic to highlight the significant traffic growth and conversations the brand and products saw as a direct result of the implementation of social elements throughout the site.

If you’ve felt challenged by tracking the effectiveness of social features on your site, take a look at this chart and consider using it as a guide to set up your own key metrics. There are also a growing number of sites, such as Quantcast, Postling and others, who strive to make this process easier for smaller businesses.

SOCIAL ACTIVITY TOOLS TO HELP MEASURE
- 113.3% increase #Samsung Mentions   ….                  Postling, Randian6, Loudpixel – lots of options
- 444.8% increase in Facebook Likes     ….                    Facebook analytics

TRAFFIC
- 22.3% increase in Time Spent               ….                      Google analytics
- 30.4% increase in Page Depth              ….                      Google analytics
- 33.6% increase in Unique Visitors      ….                      Google analytics

CONSUMER FEEDBACK
- 262.8% increase of Reviews Submitted     ….              # of reviews
- 277.8% increase in Content Sharing         ….               Share This or similar product
- 321.2% increase in Logins                            ….               Google analytics or site logs
- 1021.4% increase Community Questions   ….             # of questions posted