Trending Upward

I’ve been reading a lot about social media ROI lately. How can you not? There is so much information out there. In my opinion, the best series I’ve read on the subject is over at BrandBuilder. 9 posts so far on the subject. Awesome, awesome stuff.

Before I get started with this post, though, I want to mention 2 things:

1. Social media doesn’t just mean Twitter, Facebook, and the like. I know you all know this, but I’m just saying … social media is about conversations – reviews, posts, tweets, comments, videos, sharing, anything … anything. Obviously there are different tools that are popular now, but it does depend on the audience. What’s popular for one group of people, isn’t for another. Find out what your audience is using.
2. Social media obviously doesn’t happen in a vacuum. There are many other marketing efforts happening all the time at your university. Know what they are and how they impact your bottom line. Social media is an addition to those efforts.

Now, on with the post.

Measuring the “media” part of social media is simple if you use a web analytics tool. In conversation, you have a call-to-action, the user clicks on it. Like a good marketer, you use a trackable URL and voila … measurement (click-throughs, success events, conversion).

For example … from @BeAnOregonDuck

Simple to track and measure all the way to the success event (signing up for a campus visit).

The hard part of measurement is the “social.” How do you measure being social? How do you measure the return on a conversation? There are a ton of “social media ROI calculators” out there trying to quantitatively measure being social. They’re not measuring ROI, though. They’re measuring potential.

Don’t get measuring potential mixed up with measuring ROI. Measuring ROI means measuring a dollar value, not a potential dollar value.

Does this matter to you, though?

Like anything else, how you measure will depend on your goal. What is your goal for using social media? What are you trying to do?

If your goal is to listen to conversations about your university or to simply engage your students in conversations, ok, you can measure that … friends, followers, conversations, mentions, click-throughs, and much more.

If your goal, however, is to increase alumni donations or student enrollment, then your number of Twitter followers or measuring your influence using Twitalyzer, or measuring your clicks using Hootsuite doesn’t show anything but potential. Friends, mentions, influence, and click-throughs does NOT equal success. Donations/enrollments equal success. The others *may* equal success, but that’s as far as it can go if you can’t measure all the way to the donation/enrollment.

Obviously, like in the example above, if you drive people back to your site with a URL, you *can* measure more than just the click-through. But, if your Web site has limitations measuring to the actual donation or enrollment, again, you’re just measuring potential.

Here are 4 thoughts about the different ways to measure social media.

First, you can measure potential – track mentions, shares, clicks and more. Interactive Insights Group has a list of social media measurement posts and articles.

Second, you can measure conversions like traditional online media. You post something (tweet, blog, status, whatever) with a trackable URL that drives the user back to your Web site and you look at their behavior. Did they bounce? Did the convert? What did they do?

Third, you can run a focused test. Focus on a small portion of your audience. Let’s say you are focusing in on your prospects (or current students) who happen to be in the military. You’re heavily involved with social media with this audience. They join you in Second Life, read and comment on your blog, tweet, or converse using other types of  social media.

You involve yourself in those conversations. You measure your enrollments with that group of people before your involvement in those conversations. You measure your enrollments with that group of people after your involvement in those conversations.

BrandBuilder has  an awesome post about activity timelines. Focus on a segment of your audience and do this. You can really get at true insights here. The great part of the activity timeline is that they show measurement of *all* activity during that time. Remember social media doesn’t happen in a vacuum.

Fourth, if you have a CRM tool, you can track your prospects, applicants, and students and your social media efforts with it. For instance, when you are involved in conversations with these people, track that involvement using your CRM. I’m not saying just put in their Twitter name and that equals involvment. I’m saying really track the conversations. Are those people who are involved with those conversations more likely to enroll or re-enroll in classes?

Truly measuring ROI and potential with your social media efforts takes time and effort, though. It’s neither easy nor is it something that can be done by just plugging numbers into a calculator. You measure your outcomes with traditional online marketing efforts, right? Then you should with social media as well.

Does any of this really matter, though? Does your boss want you to measure true ROI or does he/she get that being involved with your customers is beneficial – customer service, a value-add?

Ya know what I’d love to figure out? How much money are we losing by *not* being part of the conversation? People *are* talking about your university, whether you’re part of the conversation or not. Do you know what they’re saying? Do you care?

What are your thoughts on social media measurement?

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