To measure your blog in terms of return on investment (ROI) you will first need to determine what it is you want to define as your return. There are many ways to measure a blog but you need to know what you want to measure first before you begin.
In a self-made video, Jason Wells interviews Katie Paine on measuring ROI in social Media.
Paine explains how there is no standard measurement to quantify social media. (Even though you can read more about measuring at her blog, The Measurement Standard!) But Paine goes on to say that you need to attract the right people to your blog and measure the visitors that stay and return to your site. You need to determine an audience and what the return is that you want from these people.
You can measure the traffic of your blog if you just want to see how many people travel through your site. Along with measuring traffic, you can measure the number of links, comments, and trackbacks to your blog. Here you type in your blog name and this will pull up the information you want about your blog. You might want to also determine the ratio between the number of your posts and the amount of comments you receive.
These are ways to quantify the return you are getting from your blog. This will help you get started on measuring the value of your blog, but you still want to keep in mind the ways that the outcome of your blog might be more important than just numbers.
March 6, 2009 at 6:34 pm
Heather,
I’m currently trying to get social media tools up and running at The Breeze, where I work. I’ve set up a Facebook fan page, a Twitter account, and we already have the news online on our blog. However, I had to really prove to my managers why social media use is so important in marketing our product. I’d like to try out some of Katie Paine’s tactics to measure the worth of a blog and other social media tools. If I could prove the ROI of these tools I think my managers would be fully supportive of me taking the time and effort to use them.
March 17, 2009 at 4:52 am
Lindsey, what is the Twitter account for The Breeze? I know a lot of people do not appreciate Twitter, so I can see why you had to push for adoption.
Heather, I see your point about the difficulty of identifying goals for measurement of social media. In the video, Katie Paine was able to point out how measuring outcome can help a company determine if a social media application is benefiting their company. I think it’s more important for companies to take the time to show they care about their audience and have the technology available for relationships to be formed, then just focusing on analytic’s and metric’s measurement.
Measuring outcomes still sounds very complicated and possibly long-term, but I know companies are focused on outcomes and improving productivity. If people do not understand how to measure the effectiveness of social media or explain the importance of social media, companies will be hesitant in adopting the technologies. Most of the applications are free, so testing them out is worth a try for any company.
March 17, 2009 at 5:43 am
Hey Heather,
This is a great video I really enjoyed listening to Katie Paine’s ideas. She really has a knack on how to measure social media. I found it really interesting that measurement is never from a direct line. She is requested to speak at conferences and then audience members remember her and ask for help with measuring social media effectiveness.
I also liked how she went about presenting the ideas to look at measurement. To me measurement is the hardest part of social media because it is still being developed. It is comforting to know that there are people like Katie Paine or the Forrester Research Company that are working hard to help social media advocates understand ways to effectively measure their site.
The truth is measurement is no longer simply who visited your site. So many factors help determine measurement, but return on investment is clearly here to stay. Our generation will need to understand it even more as we enter the workforce and prove to potential employers why they need social media.
It’s also really cool that Lindsey is dealing with this now at the Breeze. It goes to show us that we need to have all the facts and knowledge of social media to really convince others to use it.