One of the fundamental Five Ts of word of mouth marketing I teach in my book is “Tracking.” Because word of mouth often involves a lot of testing of topics and trying new things, you need a tracking component to help you identify what works and what doesn’t.
One of the brightest minds in tracking and measurement is Olivier Blanchard. We were lucky enough to have him join us at our last Word of Mouth Supergenius event, where he shared a bunch of practical ways he coaches brands on how to determine the ROI of their programs.
A few of his big ideas:
- Nothing a company does is free. It’s easy to think social media is free because the tools are free, but in reality they take manpower, technology and time — all of which are limited resources.
- Establish a baseline. Start measuring by evaluating the results of what you’re already doing. Not everything, just focus on what’s important based on the objectives you’re trying to accomplish.
- Create activity timelines. Every activity you do (press releases, events, etc.) should be plotted on a timeline that you can then compare to the volume of both positive and negative mentions.
- Look beyond digital figures. Olivier recommends looking at offline figures too, like in-store foot traffic, to get a full view of what your word of mouth and social media programs are really adding to the bottom line.
If you like this presentation, check out our upcoming Word of Mouth Supergenius event in New York on July 20.
Twitter
Facebook
Linkedin
RSS
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Ana Hoffman, Santi Chacon. Santi Chacon said: Andy’s Answers: Measuring the ROI of your social media programs: One of the fundamental Five Ts of word of mouth m… http://bit.ly/cMZZ1X [...]
[...] Andy’s Answers: Measuring the ROI of your social media programs | SmartBlog On Social Media Jump to Comments via smartblogs.com [...]
Great video. Thanks for the share and insight.
Organization is key without question. This is great insight that reinforces basic principles for success.
My recent post Capturing Engagement and Donations from the Next Generation
Nice! I was just looking for this video today. Great insights.
My question is, how do you map out all those metric types and overlay them on one graph? What program does that? Excel?
Great video and very interesting insights on "Measuring the ROI of Your Social Media Programs.
My recent post Drink-Ware or Be Square
Riveting and insightful. It speaks to what the customer/client is going to eventually ask themselves after starting down the path of social networking.
Great work, Olivier….
[...] later, I found a video of Olivier Blanchard actually walking people through his presentation, on Andy’s Answers, at smartblogs.com. Thank you Andy! And thank you Olivier Blanchard for finally making some sense [...]