How Are B2B Marketers Measuring Social Media?

I asked a number of my B2B Marcom colleagues how they’re measuring social media. The answers were varied, but all agreed that anyone involved in social media should measure results, and the metrics will depend on your objectives.

For B2B considered purchases, social media is just like all other B2B marketing communications—there’s not necessarily a direct correlation to a communications such as blog post and a sale. Instead it’s the aggregate impact of integrated marketing communications that drives engagement throughout the buying cycle and ultimately a sale.

Manually mapping trends in social media activity to sales trends.

Let’s say you have a 180-day buying cycle. You would track the number of social media mentions/activities (tweets, social bookmarks, blog references, etc.), white paper downloads, video views, webinar attendance, followers/fans. Then, plot these on a trend chart, and do the same for sales. See if there’s a connection between social media activity and sales activity, particularly within the 180-day buying cycle. You’ll also want to note any other Marcom activity during this same period such as trade shows and events and ads.

Yes, this takes time, but it’s the only way to prove to ROI-conscious executives the value of your social media investment. Although your initial success metric may be tweets, followers, mentions, etc., these metrics don’t equate to dollars unless you can draw a correlation to sales.

Tools to help you monitor social media activity… especially the organic activity that results from good content?

Many of my colleagues started out by using free tools and a good old-fashioned spreadsheet to manually track media mentions, social bookmarks, comments, videos watched, etc. Tools such as Google alerts, Twitter search, socialmention.com and Topsy.com can help you see where you’re mentioned and what’s being said. In addition, you can search Technorati and the blogosphere to listen to what’s being said.

Depending on the scope of your social media activity, you may need to graduate to professional tools, which are fee-based, but offer greater capabilities and automation to more closely monitor your social media activity. Here’s a sampling of social media monitoring tools such as Meteor, objectivemarketer.com, Radian6 and PR Newswire’s MultiVu. You should also check with your web metrics provider. Several web metrics providers also offer social media monitoring add-on services such as <Alterian and Omniture.

Caveat about social media ROI

Social media by its nature is about building and cultivating relationships, which takes time and involvement in the social media sphere. If you’re looking for a social media quick win, then you’ve completely missed the point and should avoid social media… it may do more harm than good. Look at it this way… Do you measure the ROI of every single sales call, even though most don’t result in a direct sale? And do you only count the last foot in the door as the call that really made the sale, ignoring the numerous other visits, face-to-face meetings, etc. that may have influenced the final call? Probably not… you’re looking at the total cost of sales and the revenue it generates.

I think social media ROI should be handled in a similar way. You may need to look at the aggregate affect of social media along with the other elements in the marcom mix to determine ROI. ROI won’t be immediately visible for social media in most B2B considered purchases due to the length of time it takes to cultivate relationships. It’s kind of like trying to measure the ROI of a brochure.

About The BtoBblogger: Joan is a B2B marcom consultant and copywriter with more than 15 years experience helping high tech and industrial companies generate leads and sales through integrated marketing communications including SEO copywriting, social media and website content. She can be reached at www.jdamico.net or through her blog www.integratedmarcom.blogspot.com.

Author: Joan Damico | Website | Twitter

Joan is a B2B marcom consultant and copywriter with more than 15 years experience helping high tech and industrial companies generate leads and sales through integrated marketing communications including SEO copywriting, social media and website content.