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CHAPTER 6
ON YOUR SOCIAL PAYOFF STRATEGY
Th e beginning is the most important part of the work.Plato
In the previous chapters, I shared about how social media has
changed the business landscape as a tool for promoting your
company, and a place for you to create a community of users, infl
uencers, and other industry drivers that can help your brand grow.
We have identifi ed the duties, roles, and responsibilities that
are essential in making the social media marketing process work eff
ectively. We have also talked about Th e C3 System, a framework
that we use for every client so that they are able to plan a
ROI-centric social media strategy.
Setting your strategic objectives and the timeline to achieve
them is the fi rst of the steps under Th e C3 Systems Conversations
stage. Doing this right will set the stage for the rest of your
campaign. Many companies make the mistake of neglecting this stage,
or setting
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ambiguous objectives that cannot be properly measured. As
illustrated by this quote from John Wanamaker, Half the money I
spent on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I dont know which
half. Similarly, marketing should not just be about spending money,
buying ads, and simply just getting awareness for your brand. It
should also have a specifi c measured outcome.
Before jumping on the social media bandwagon, ask yourself this
critical question in your role as a business owner or marketer:
What do
you want to achieve from social media? Copyright Marcus Ho
For example, when I ask top executive management what their
social media campaigns key business objectives are, the answer I
get is usually more fans on my Facebook Page. Unfortunately, this
isnt a key business objective. My friend Jay Baer has a popular
quote, Th e goal is not to be good at social media. Th e goal is to
be good at business because of
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social media. More fans is a social media metric, but it must
relate to key business objectives. Without tangible objectives to
guide your campaign, your social strategy will cause confusion, as
your actions and decisions will not be guided by defi nitive
targets.
All social media campaigns start with your business strategy.
Everything else will have to t into the overall strategy of
your organisation. Source: Convince and Convert
Setting strategic objectives and timelines help you to keep
track of your progress, maintain your direction in the complex
social media environment, and allow you to remedy situations should
errors or missteps occur in the midst of the campaign. Based on my
experience, there are usually three diff erent key objectives that
organisations want to achieve: Increase brand awareness, increase
sales, and consumer retention.
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Once objectives are set, the next stage of The C3 System is to
identify metrics to measure the success of your objectives.
Copyright Marcus Ho
Once objectives are set, the second stage of the Conversations
process is setting your Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for the
campaign. Th is means getting into conversation with your
management and team on what KPIs to use to measure the success of
your earlier set objectives. Th ese KPIs will, in turn, allow you
to determine your Return On Investment (ROI) or social payoff at
the end of the campaign. Many companies have diffi culty
quantifying their social media ROI due to the complex and often
intangible nature of social media marketing. My team and I at
SocialMetric have a social media ROI framework with 24 unique
metrics to help you, based on the three key objectives of
increasing brand awareness, increasing action or sales, and
consumer loyalty.
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The Framework to Measuring Social Media ROI. Download the full
version at SocialPayoffBook.com Copyright Marcus Ho
Brand Awareness ROI
Back in 1961, Russel H. Colley came up with the DAGMAR approach,
which stands for Defi ning Advertising Goals for Measured
Advertising Results. Ever since then, the DAGMAR model has been
internationally recognised and used in many marketing departments
all over the world. According to the DAGMAR model, each purchase
prospect goes through four steps: Awareness, Comprehension,
Conviction, and Action.
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To explain this in a little more detail, all advertisements
begin at the Awareness stage, where consumers fi rst know about the
brand. Th ey do not necessarily know about your products and why
theyre diff erent yet, but at least your brand name will ring a
bell in their minds. Th e next stage is where they start to
comprehend your products, start to recognise and understand how
youre diff erent from the rest of your industry. Once they are past
that stage, then comes the Conviction phase where consumers will
rave about you and prefer your brand over your competitors. And the
last stage is the time they put their money where their mouths are,
and eventually purchase your products.
Th e Social Media ROI model is built on this existing DAGMAR
model with brand awareness on top, broken down into three phases:
Awareness, Comprehension, and Conviction.
Awareness
Awareness refers to consumers ability to recall and recognise
the brand under appropriate conditions, and link this memory to
situations and conditions associated with the brand. For example,
when most people
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think about fast food, they think of McDonalds, KFC, Subway,
etc. Th e very fi rst step to achieving brand awareness is
exposure. Most brands traditionally buy advertising spaces on
traditional media to get exposure. Just walking along a popular
shopping area will expose you to many advertising messages such as
bus ads, posters, and banners. Th e downside to these traditional
ads is that even though people may be exposed to the existence of
the brand, they do not know the product benefi ts. Th ese ads are
hampered by space constraints, and detailed product benefi ts are
usually omitted as a result. Th is is fi ne, as the main goal of
these ads is to gain mindshare and awareness.
Th e social media equivalent of awareness can be measured by the
number of Likes on the Facebook Page. A Facebook Like is equivalent
to consumers giving you their email address, as you will gain
access to the consumers News Feed. Do not underestimate the value
of a Facebook News Feed. Half the battle is already won, since you
can publish content relevant to your consumers and start building a
relationship with them directly. Another metric to determine
awareness is the total reach. Reach refers to the total number of
people who have viewed a particular piece of content posted on the
Facebook Page. When a consumer engages with the content you post,
it is likely that friends of that engaged consumer, who share
strong affi nity scores, will also see the post and get exposed to
your brand. Th e third and fourth metrics to measure awareness are
viewers and web traffi c, which are not related to Facebook. Most
companies today have YouTube channels, where corporate, event, and
advertising videos are housed. Th e number of visitors to your
website from your diff erent social equities also impacts your
exposure levels. You can fi nd out the number of visitors through a
free and amazing tool called Google Analytics. And to close the
loop, the fi nal awareness metric is cost-per-impression, arguably
the metric that best explains the diff erence between traditional
and social media. Cost-per-impression means the total cost required
getting 1,000 eyeballs to your advertising message. If you measure
your cost-per-impression across all marketing channels, traditional
and social, you will be able to come to a conclusion to determine
whether social media is a more
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eff ective and cheaper channel in reaching out and gaining
awareness as compared to traditional media.
One of our clients Cost-per-Impression ROI calculations.
Copyright SocialMetric
Comprehension
Awareness is the fi rst step to achieving brand awareness, but
note that it only means letting your target audience know of your
existence. Once they become aware, it is time to engage them and to
get them to understand more about what you are offering to the
market. Comprehension means reaching out to your consumers and
letting them know more about your brand, products, and services.
Traditional counterparts in this advertising phase are roadshows
and exhibits where you can directly interact with your
consumers.
In the social media space, the People Talking About Th is (PTAT)
score of your Facebook Page is one metric to measure that level
of
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engagement. PTAT basically means the number of people who
engaged with your content by Liking, Commenting, and/or Sharing it.
Th is can be likened to a passer-by who asks an employee at a
roadshow about product benefi ts. Th e next possible metric to
measure comprehension is Retweets on Twitter. A Retweet is
basically like forwarding an email. If an airline company, for
example, tweets about a promotional off er, you can Retweet it, and
it will be seen by all your followers on Twitter. Content
conversations is the next metric people commenting on the content
on your social channels. Social brand mentions is measured by the
number of times your brand is mentioned on your consumers social
profi le. It is useful to measure your content conversations and
social brand mentions on a monthly basis, as this will allow you to
fi nd out if consumers are interested in your brand. Th e
cost-per-engagement metric will tie all your engagement initiatives
together. By taking the total amount of cost, including manpower
and logistics, divided by the amount of engaged consumers, you will
get your cost-per-engagement score. Once again, measure this across
all your marketing eff orts, and you will realise that social media
off ers you the lowest cost-per-engagement.
One of our clients cost-per-engagement calculations. Copyright
SocialMetric
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Conviction
Th e fi nal stage in measuring brand awareness is conviction,
which refers to how much a consumer feels positively about your
brand. Lets say a friend asks you which smartphone brand he should
purchase. You carry a Samsung phone and you are pleased with the
experiences youve had with it, so you would defi nitely recommend
the Samsung phone to your friend. You have just infl uenced your
friend to fi nd out more about the benefi ts of Samsung phones,
which may lead to a purchase. To measure such convictions
traditionally would be extremely costly, starting at around
$100,000 through mass surveys. And even then, the results may not
be quite accurate because everyone has diff erent agendas when fi
lling up survey forms.
To measure conviction on social media, the fi rst metric is
positive social brand mentions, meaning how many connected
consumers are talking positively about your brand online. Th is can
be done using social monitoring tools like Th oughtBuzz, Meltwater,
or Brandtology. Th e next metric, Category Share of Voice, can also
be determined by social monitoring tools. Category Share of Voice
means fi nding out which brand is the most talked about within the
same category or industry on social media. Th is is important as
the more people talking about your brand, the more infl uence your
brand will enjoy.
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Category Share of Voice research as shown in the screenshot
above. As you can see, Chanel is the current market leader at the
point of the conducted research.
Another metric you can use is Category Share of Search, which
means which brand is the most searched for within the same category
or industry on the social web. Research from GroupM has shown that
a person is 2.8 times more likely to Google a brand if he/she has
already been exposed to the brands social campaigns. For example,
if they are already fans of your Facebook Page, they are 2.8 times
more likely to Google your brand name. Many conclusions can be
drawn from this, but what is certain is that brands who are Googled
more often are more infl uential.
In the screenshot example above, it shows that the search volume
for LOrals nail polishes is competing closely with OPI. You can fi
nd out the same for your industry at Google Th ink Insights.
Action/Sales ROI
ConversionsTh e next key objective for a social media campaign
is to increase sales. First of all, all the brand awareness has to
be converted to sales. Th e fi rst metric to measure conversion is
sales-intended traffi c from social equities. If you havent done so
already, install Google Analytics for your website. It is free and
extremely useful in giving you valuable insights on your sites
traffi c fl ow. If you are in the retail industry, you will want to
fi nd out which pages your consumers are accessing through
social
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media, and whether those pages are sales-related ones, like your
online order or outlet location page. When consumers visit
sales-related pages, it means that they have the intention to buy.
From those insights, you can calculate your cost-per-visitor score.
Take the total amount spent on growing your Social Community
(Facebook ad spend, promoted posts) plus the total amount spent on
engagement (creating content, running word-of-mouth campaigns), and
divide the number by total visitors on your sales-related webpages.
If your company is not sales-based, actions taken by consumers is a
good metric to gauge conversion. Th ese actions include providing
email addresses, phone numbers, subscriptions, donations, and
RSVPs. All these actions can also be measured using the cost
per-visitor-formula, by replacing the visitor number with the
relevant action number.
How to calculate your Cost-per-Visitor score. Copyright
SocialMetric
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Sales Figures
Th ese methods of quantifying sales may not be relevant to all
companies it really depends on the industry and type of business
you are in. To track sales, put up off ers and promotions
exclusively on your brands social media channels. It doesnt matter
which platform you choose, just remember to make it exclusive to
social media. Facebook Off ers is a new tool launched by Facebook
and it has proven to be very useful for every retail company that
we have worked with.
And if youre in the retail business, you can also use a Whisper
Code, which is a secret word that is only announced on specifi c
social platforms with a specifi c off er. In order to claim that
off er, your customers must softly whisper the secret word to the
cashier at your retail outlets.
Another possible way is through the social connectivity of
customers. Th is means connecting all your customers on a Customer
Relationship Management (CRM) platform so that you can see an
accurate amount
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of increase in sales from customers socially connected to your
business. To make this happen, there are many CRM companies and
tools that would be able to integrate your Point-of-Sale systems
with your social presence. Th e outcome for you is to be able to
tell if customers who are socially connected with you are spending
more versus customers who are not socially connected.
Consumer Loyalty ROI
Some companies are happy with the amount of brand awareness and
sales revenue they enjoy. Th eir main objective is to retain
consumer loyalty so that sales revenue will remain constant.
Consumer retention can be measured by actions taken from your top
engaged users. Social CRM platforms like AgoraPulse allow you to fi
nd out who are your most engaged fans based on the interaction they
have with your Facebook Page. Th e more times they Like, comment,
and Share your post, the more engaged and loyal they are considered
to be. Th is group of loyal consumers are your brand champions, and
are likely to speak positively and promote your brand to their own
friends.
This is one of AgoraPulses main features: the Facebook CRM tool.
From this, you can tell who are your topmost engaged fans and
further
cultivate brand advocacy from them. Source: Agora Pulse
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Such Facebook CRM tools can be extremely helpful in cultivating
more consumer loyalty. We showed the top 20 most engaged fans to a
particular client in the business of distributing a very well-known
haircare product across Asia. Th ere was a lot of potential from
this, and the fi rst action step they took was to bring their top
20 most engaged fans (not surprisingly, all of them were ladies)
out for a Sunday brunch. During the brunch, they distributed a
couple of their sample haircare products to these ladies and asked
them to test them out. In the following months, some of them sent
in their positive feedback about using the sample products and the
brand manager made an eff ort to stay in touch with all 20 of them.
Being in the distribution and retail business, the company also had
to do mystery shopping once every quarter, and they relied on this
same group of 20 ladies to mystery shop (which some ladies would be
happy to do for free). Likewise for certain focus group sessions,
the company relied on this same group of top most engaged fans.
Just by leveraging on these relationships, the company was able to
save more than $50,000 in expenses. When there were questions or
negative feedback on their Facebook Page, one of these 20 top most
engaged fans actually answered on the companys behalf! Imagine the
same scenario for your business: You having your own group of brand
advocates. How much cash do you think you can save?
Th e next metric is Net Promoter Score (NPS) of socially
connected consumers. You can fi nd out your brands NPS by asking
one simple question: On a scale of 0-10, how likely is it that you
will recommend [your company name] to a friend or colleague? A
score of 0-6 means that these respondents are detractors, 7-8 means
they are passive, 9-10 means they are promoters. NPS can be
calculated by the percentage of promoters minus the percentage of
detractors. Th is model can also be used to improve customer
service, as it gives you opportunities to engage with your
detractors and fi nd out how to improve their experiences with your
brand, turning them into promoters. Companies like Agoda (the hotel
booking site) are known to use this very frequently, especially
after you book your hotel. Th is can possibly decrease your company
expenses
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as well, as less complaints means less manpower and budget
allocated to customer service.
How to calculate your NPS. Copyright SocialMetric
The Action Plan
All these metrics may be a little overwhelming. You may be
wondering why it is so tedious to measure social media ROI. It is
actually not that diffi cult and you can avoid the analysis
paralysis. For a start, you need to understand and follow Th e C3
System, especially the Conversations stage, where you set your
objectives and KPIs. Once you decide on your objectives, whether to
increase brand awareness, increase action or sales, or whether it
is consumer loyalty, determine which stage of the social media ROI
framework your brand is currently at. From there, pick three
metrics and measure it for at least three months. Progress through
the diff erent stages, and select diff erent metrics to measure
your ROI. Th e results you get will certainly be worth the eff
ort.
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REFLECTIONS
Does your companys social media metrics support the overall
business objectives?Pick three metrics from the Social Media ROI
model and measure it for at least three months.ROI is key to every
social media campaign. Always be mindful of achieving the best
possible ROI in whatever strategy you implement. Brand awareness is
a largely vague term used loosely by many social media agencies.
Familiarise yourself with the three phases of brand awareness
(Awareness, Comprehension, Conviction) so that you will have a
clear idea of what actually constitutes the term. If your companys
objective does not include monetising through social media, other
metrics, such as email addresses acquired, can be used to measure
the campaigns ROI.