Metrics for Viral Content and the ROI of Social Media
1. Viral Marketing
Metrics for Viral Content and
the ROI of Social Media
Measuring a Conversation
Alex Nelson, Home Front Communications
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2. Viral Marketing
Defining “Viral”
Viral Marketing
Consist of using one or more platforms to
reach users
Is shareable
Is affected by multiple content factors
Novelty
Comedy
Controversy
Action-oriented
Starts a dialogue - “Did you see that video on
YouTube?”
Has no defined timeline
There is no benchmark for declaring a campaign
“viral”
Is it 1 million YouTube views?
Is it 10,000 Facebook fans?
Is it 1,000 Twitter followers?
Is it 100,000 visitors to your Web site?
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3. Viral Marketing
Measuring Social Media Engagement
Determining the ROI of Social Media presents a difficult problem: How
do you put numeric qualities around human interactions and
conversations?
Creating Two Ways to Measure
Quantitative Analysis
Qualitative Analysis
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4. Viral Marketing
Measuring Social Media Engagement - Quanitative Analysis
Web Site Traffic
Platform Measurements
YouTube Views
Facebook/MySpace Friends
Twitter Followers
Action Measurements
Petitions
Donations
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5. Viral Marketing
Measuring Social Media Engagement - Qualitative Analysis
Community
Engagement
Reputation
Instead of formulas, ask these questions -
Are you building better relationships with key audiences?
Are you participating in conversations where you hadn’t been involved?
Are you creating a dialogue?
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6. Viral Marketing
Case Study – A Powerful Noise
Multi-platform campaign fighting poverty
in honor International Women’s Day
Documentary launched on
MAY
MAY
APR International Women’s Day (March 5,
JUNE 2009)
Visual Petition powered by Flickr
Tweet-a-thon
Used #apowerfulnoise to track
JULY Tweets and then donated $.50 to
CARE for up to 10,000 tweets
AUG
What more could the campaign have done?
SEP
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7. Viral Marketing
Creating Metrics for Your Organization
Measurable goals based on your organization’s past online performance
What type of campaign are you pursuing: advocacy, fundraising,
visibility, reputation management, etc?
Use a combination of qualitative and quantitative measurements to
create your success metrics
Implement the campaign, review your metrics and goals. Filter out
channels and strategies that don’t get good returns.
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8. Viral Marketing
GOING FORWARD….
Tips and Tricks for
Video
Social Networking
Twitter
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9. Viral Marketing
Video Tips
Platform Agnostic
Veoh
Vimeo
Yahoo
Facebook
Others
Distribution model with partner
organizations
Branded YouTube channel
Search Engine Marketing with
Google Grants
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10. Viral Marketing
Social Networking Tips
Determine your organizational needs
Private v. public social network
Facebook Optimization
Integrate your page and cause
application
Send users to your Page Wall
Create “human” updates and
generate user interaction
Utilize the format to offer
relevant information in a
streamlined manner
Applications for multiple platforms
Widgets
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11. Viral Marketing
Twitter Tips
Learn the lingo
#hashtag
DM
RT
http://twittonary.com/
Customer Service & Community
Resource
Go beyond news feeds
FollowFriday
Mashable’s Follow for Good
Twitter Mashups
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