Social Media. Measuring the ROI of. Optimize. Discover. Measure

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1 Measuring the ROI of Social Media With the rise in popularity of various social networking sites, it s clear that social media is an integral piece of a successful marketing mix; however, it has always been a struggle to measure social media s true value and ROI. Sure, you re engaging your audience, but how many of your social media followers are actually converting and becoming students? Well, wonder no more: Google Analytics has launched a new Social Analytics feature that allows users to easily measure social media efforts in terms of conversions, traffic and user engagement. Specifically in the words of Google the new Social reports will help users: Discover Identify the traffic coming from social sites and measure how they lead to direct conversions or assist in future conversions. Optimize Understand social activities happening both on and off of your site to help you optimize user engagement and increase social key performance indicators (KPIs). Measure Quantify the value of your social media efforts and make better, more efficient data-driven decisions in your social media marketing programs.

2 There are essentially four parts to the Social reports: the Overview report, the Conversions report, the Social Sources report and the Social Plugins report. Overview Report This report provides you with a high-level glimpse of the conversion value that your social outlets are bringing to the plate. Google has coined this term, Social Value. The graph shows how many conversions out of the total number of conversions were related to social channels. The two relations are Assisted Social Conversions (light blue circle) and Last Interaction Social Conversions (dark blue circle). Assisted Social Conversions are social referrals that do not convert immediately but may revisit the site later on and convert at that time. Thus, this conversion was assisted by social efforts. Last Interaction Social Conversions are those social referrals that convert immediately, meaning the social channel was the last interaction before the conversion. If that seems a bit unclear, it may also be helpful to simply think of these as either Direct (a.k.a. Last Interaction) or Indirect (a.k.a. Assisted) Social Conversions.

3 Conversions Report With this report, you can measure the success, or ROI, of each individual social channel by aligning them with the goals you ve set up in Google Analytics. Not familiar with how to set up a goal? It s easy and extremely productive. After all, don t you want to know whether or not skaterboi234 or princesslaylay44 are on their way to becoming successful students? Once you set up your goal(s), you ll be able to reap the full benefit of the Conversions report and see how many conversions each social channel has generated and the conversion value of each channel. Social Sources Report Much like the typical Traffic Sources report, this report also provides metrics for each social network in the categories titled Visits, Pageviews, Average Visit Duration and Pages/Visit so that you can identify which channels your audience is using to connect with your brand and how well that audience is engaging with your website. These metrics can provide valuable insight into which channels would be most beneficial to leverage for your marketing purposes. For instance, you might find that although Twitter is sending more traffic to your website, visitors are only visiting an average of one page and only staying on your site for an average of 30 seconds. In contrast, maybe Google+ is sending fewer social referrals, but these referrals are of higher quality, viewing an average of three pages and staying on the site an average of two and a half minutes they have a higher likelihood of converting. Therefore, you decide to focus your efforts on Google+ so that you can work to bring in more highquality social traffic.

4 But wait, there s more! If you switch from the Social Referral tab to the Activity Stream tab, you ll be able to see how people are interacting with your content. In other words, this tab will show you if people are sharing your content and, if so, what they are saying about it. Once you find a comment or post about your content or brand that you think is worth exploring, you then have the option to view the original post within the social realm (View Activity) or see how this conversation about your brand or product/service evolved and spread across the Internet (View Ripple). The downside of the Activity Stream tab is that, for now, it is limited as to what platforms it reports on; right now, it s just Google+ and a few other social data hubs. social data hubguide on social data hubs If you re looking for the bottom line, it s this: The Social Sources report can provide you insight into which social channel is bringing in the biggest ROI and, thus, which social networks should be leveraged in your marketing campaign to give you the biggest bang for your buck.

5 Social Plugins Report Another useful resource is the Social Plugins report, which tracks user engagement with content via social share buttons placed on your site. This report can help you better understand your audience and what type of content is most popular among them so that you can craft the best type of content to engage your visitors. Additionally, you can use the Social Plugins report to help identify which buttons are actually being clicked on and which are just taking up valuable space on your website; this can help you reduce clutter on your website if needed. The downside of the Social Plugins report? The only source it automatically reports on is Google+. To be able to receive data from other social network button activity, you will need to modify your tracking code on these buttons so that their activity is integrated with Google Analytics. Once you do this, you ll be able to track non-google social interactions on your site. Words of Wisdom As we know, no marketing should be done aimlessly. With these new Social reports in Google Analytics, you no longer have to guess if your social media efforts are working. Make sure you take advantage of this new feature, so you can better understand your social audience and how they interact and engage with your social channels and brand. Set up your Google Analytics goals and assign values to each. Then, provide users with social plugins on your website so they can share your content and engage in social media. This will only help you to hone your marketing efforts, leverage your brand and business, build relationships, and reel in a high ROI.