The ROI of social media marketing | some answers

Once in a while, I peruse the questions asked on LinkedIn in the Marketing and Business Development sections. Earlier today, the 1 million dollar question on social business was raised: “How will you measure the actual ROI from social media campaigns?”.

Dependent on the campaign, objective and industry, to my mind Social ROI is either measurable as a KPI that initiatives can be attributed to or part of the broader mix and more difficult to measure. At eg Philips the social programme in B2B differentiates between a number of online & social KPIs to track the success of the campaign down the various stages of the funnel (reach, image, traffic, subscriptions etc) in the short & medium term whilst measuring NPS/ net promoter score in the long run. Using a benchmark of social vs non social (campaign with or without, comparable hotel on Booking.com with or without social shares/ recommendations) may also enable you to build insights into 2.0 ROI.

Social adepts will refer to ROI as the equivalent to Risk of Ignoring (social media). Whilst I’d agree with that notion, most decision makers nowadays will want to see a business case and KPIs backed up by relevant numbers also.

For some KPIs useful to assess social ROI in the various steps in the funnel, see this model below (click to expand view).