Monetizing Social Media

How to show the monetary value of social media

“Show me the ROI of social media.” Every social media marketer has heard this phrase at some point. I mean, can we really prove the ROI of social media? Can we prove that content strategy, creation and social media marketing is bringing in the big bucks? Yes, yes we can. And it’s through something called attribution.

Google Analytics is a beautiful tool that can be customized to show a funnel system from where a potential customer came to where they end up. We call this “attribution.” Attribution is a whole lot like scoring points in a hockey game (yes, I’m Canadian). It takes more than one player to make the goal happen. One player may score the goal, but a bunch of other players helped to make it happen.

The next time your boss asks you to demonstrate the value of social media in terms of return on investment, you need to be able to demonstrate that if a client clicked through to the website from a social media page, then left, but returned the next day and filled out form or signed up to your services, you had a big hand in making that happen.

Set up custom reports so that you can see where you visitors went (or if they bounced) once they landed on a page via your social media post. That way, you can note if your click-through is valuable and whether or not you might need to tweak your content and social media strategy.

I apologize for not going into more depth on the topic, but I will when I can find the time. For now, you might want to sign up for Google Analytics Academy to learn more about quantifying your social media efforts.