Numbers, Metrics & ROI – OH MY! [Part Two]

Our numbers, metrics, and ROI quest continues.

In Part One, we talked about how hard and soft metrics measure up when evaluating your social media efforts. For Part Two, we’ll dissect Brand Awareness. This may be one of the top reasons companies decide to use social media, and for social

For Part Two, we’ll dissect Brand Awareness.

This may be one of the top reasons companies decide to use social media, and for social marketers, it’s the easiest way to show a soft return on investment (ROI).

Measuring Brand Awareness

When we talk about the “what” of ROI, we are often referring to Brand Awareness. It envelops traffic, interaction, sharing, conversations, reach … am I forgetting anything?!

There’s a lot to measure here, so let’s jump in.

Ways to Measure Traffic:

1. How many visitors are coming from social outlets to your website?
2. Fan and Follower counts: Are you growing steadily, or are you stagnant?
   1. How many fans do you typically gain in a week/month?
   2. Are you using organic or paid measures to reach new fans?
   3. What do your viral numbers look like?
3. Google Analytics is a great, FREE, way to measure traffic on your website

Ways to Measure Conversation:

1. At B Squared, we measure conversation and disclosures very closely. You can see more about how we do that by reading my honors thesis.
2. How are people talking about your brand (think sentiment)? You can use socialmention.com to measure your brand affinity.
3. Engaged users under Facebook Insights will show you what content your Fans like the most. Create more of what they like to keep engagement high!
4. Shares on Facebook will allow Fans to ‘create a story’ about your brand. You can measure your shares under ‘Post-level Data’ on Facebook Insights.

Ways to Measure Reach:

1. Download ‘Post-level Data’ from Facebook Insights to check reach levels by post
2. Use a site like Bit.ly to obtain click rates on links you share
3. Analytics programs, like Sprout Social, have the ability to pull click rates for your social sites so you can see what information is resonating with your audience.
4. Social bookmarking sites like StumbleUpon or Delicious allow you to search your own brand or company name to see how many ‘hits’ you get. In other words, how many people are bookmarking your particular links?

We’ve talked about several ways to measure Brand Awareness – but there are certainly more!

What are some of the ways YOU measure Brand Awareness? Please consider letting us know in the comments section below so we can all learn and spread social GOOD.

[Want our free eBook on measuring SMM ROI? Download it here!]