This document discusses measuring the return on investment (ROI) of social media monitoring (SMM) and outlines some key considerations. It notes that SMM needs to justify its costs by linking activities to business outcomes like sales, leads, and prospects. However, measuring ROI is challenging and measurements should be tailored to each client, whether a business, public sector organization, or charity. Both "hard" quantitative metrics and softer qualitative measures are important but attributing causation can be difficult given confounding variables. The document provides dos and don'ts for ROI measurement and concludes that tying social media engagement to customer relationship management systems and business processes is important.

1. Making the numbers count Sullivan McIntyre • 6Consulting twitter.com/Sullivan6c linkedin.com/in/SullivanMcIntyre www.socialmediamonitoring.co.uk

2. Making the numbers count: SMM & ROI

3. Social Media Monitoring

4. Social Media Monitoring Automated mining of data Collation of information Gaining of knowledge Generation of insight

5. Data Raw keyword matches Relevancy is key: Good = 10% irrelevant Bad = 91% irrelevant!

6. Information Relevant mentions with metadata Demographics Ages Location Occupations Gender Sentiment scores

7. Knowledge Comprehension of Key Themes Trends in sentiment Specific links between cause and effect

8. Insight Actionable – what do we do about it? Examples: Asset Optimization Personalisation Engagement Strategies Strategic and Tactical

9. ROI

10. The basics SM needs to justify its existence Operational costs: Money Time Staff Two overarching approaches

11. Fundamentalist Concerned with the fundamentals Utilise hard metrics, all financial Influential proponent: @thebrandbuilder

12. Fluffy Concerned with qualitative aspects Unclear of link between soft measures and return HITS /Clickthrus Brand Awareness

13. What to measure Business outcomes are key: Sales Leads Prospects ‘Hard’ metrics that can be proven

14. But... Measures should be bespoke to client And, what about: Public sector? Charities? Brand awareness measurements?

15. And... How can you prove a negative? Preventing brand damage through engagement can be a key goal Confounding variables Charts of SM activity assume correlation is causation

16. Conclusions

17. DOs and DON’Ts Do tie SM engagement back to CRM and business processes Do measure business outcomes Do make up your own mind! Don’t expect SM to be ‘free’ Don’t be afraid to call BS!