SMM: Measuring your Return on Engagement

Some companies think that just having active conversations with customers on Twitter and Facebook constitutes a Social Media strategy. If asked what Return on Engagement (ROE) they received for their efforts, not all could provide a clear answer. The reason is that it is important to set goals and establish benchmarks in a number of engagement categories before you begin your campaigns. If you don’t know what you want to accomplish, it is hard to know when or if you have succeeded. This may seem simplistic, but it is crucial in measuring your ultimate success.

Campaign goals will have a stated result and time-frame for completion. ENGINE-IUS Marketing, Inc. will help you set benchmarks for engagement so you can study trends over time and decide if your Return on Engagement is sufficient. For example, if you decided at campaign outset that it was important to you to build a subscriber list of 10,000 RSS subscribers within 3 months, then that goal would drive the resulting campaign activities. The campaign would then be rolled out, consisting of a variety of components; all geared to helping your company reach that 10,000 RSS subscriber goal in 3 months. At the end of the timeframe, you and ENGINE-IUS Marketing, Inc. would evaluate your results and either wrap up the campaign due to achieving the goal, or discuss extending the campaign if it showed sufficient momentum and signs of positive Return on Engagement that met your requirements.

As opposed to SM ROI, SM ROE includes all the metrics that can be measured along the route to ultimate ROI. If one thinks of a Social Media campaign as a road, you can see where ROE represents a step (albeit an important one) along the way to the final destination — greater conversions (purchases, downloads; whatever user activity you define as a conversion).