Author and CEO of Social Media Explorer, Nichole Kelly, stopped by #bufferchat to share her great insights on measuring social media ROI. Be sure to check out her great book on the subject!

See the full Storify recap here!

“ROI” means “

Return on Investment. Calculated by direct impact and influence on sales volume, revenue and cost deflection.” via @nichole_kelly

Getting started in tracking ROI: 10 expert tips

Tips from Nichole:

“Start tagging your links to get data into web analytics. Use hidden fields to pass data through forms to get it into CRM.”
“ROI may not be the “best” measurement for social, but we can’t avoid it if we want to get bigger budgets.”
“Social tends to start the relationship while traditional marketing tends to convert it.”
“If you are measuring with last touch attribution you may be missing 95% of social’s influence on ROI”

“Google Anaytics users can use this http://qub.me/Jc9oyg It’s free and too many aren’t doing it. :-)”

“Last touch attribution is social media’s nemesis. Understand your attribution model.”
“Start using control group analysis to understand social’s influence on biz metrics. Social users vs. non-social users.”
“Remember that you can’t measure ROI in a “social” tool. It can only be measured in reports from CRM.”
“The number 1 thing you can do immediately is track your links. Start doing it. It’s game changing.”

“In GA use this http://qub.me/GZ8XRb Source = Network promoted on Medium = Content Type Campaign = Content Title”

Tools to track ROI:

Final thoughts on ROI and marketing:

More words of wisdom from Nichole:

“ROI is the most important skill a marketer can develop to advance their career.”“CEO’s don’t trust us. 69% of CEOs have stopped enforcing key business objectives on marketers. -Fournaise Report”“20% of CEO’s consider their marketers to be ROI marketers who could go onto senior management. Fournaise Report”

“

Your ROI will be negative when you start measuring. Prepare for it. Then optimize it like nobody’s business. ;-)”

Huge thank-you to Nichole Kelly for all her great insights!

Thank you to everyone who participated! You can join us every Wednesday at noon Eastern; 9 am Pacific for a brand-new #Bufferchat.

Between chats, check out our Google+ community to get the latest news and connect with new friends you’ve met at #Bufferchat!

Bufferchat - Page 2

10 Expert Tips on Tracking Social Media ROI – #Bufferchat Recap