Calculating Blog ROI
Dear Reader,
Welcome to Performance Marketing, the monthly newsletter for online marketers looking for results.
The rise of Facebook, Twitter and other social media has left some marketers wondering
if and how to integrate these newer opportunities into their strategic mix. Faced with
finite budgets and resources, many wonder whether or not to implement social media at
the expense of more time-tested tactics.
Happily it's not an either/or situation -- social media can actually reinforce the
effectiveness of many of these tactics. Blogging, for example, can complement, rather
than compete, with an organization's initiatives on Twitter, Facebook, and other social
networks. This issue of Performance Marketing examines the mutual benefits of blogging
and social media, and provides nine metrics to ensure your blog is performing the way
you want it to.
All the Best,
Daniel Laury
Founder, President and CEO
LSF Interactive
Feature Article: Calculating Blog ROI
One in three companies in the United States has a corporate blog, according to an
eMarketer report. Estimates are that this number will increase to 43 percent by 2012.
The benefits of blogging are well established. Blogs offer improved search rankings,
increased web traffic, and quick adoption into the search engines. Blogs put a human face
on your company, build trust and rapport, and offer a cost-effective way to build a brand.
They also allow you to communicate directly and openly with customers, critics and
other stakeholders as well as broaden your reach to those who may not know you.
Along with the rise of microblogging via Twitter and other social media platforms,
traditional blogging still has an important place in your marketing arsenal and can be
used to reinforce your other social media efforts.
Tweets, status updates and blog posts allow you to achieve the same goals -- engaging
with your stakeholders, improving brand awareness, and presenting your company as
responsive and knowledgeable.
Google, like many other businesses, is using Twitter and other social networks to support
their marketing initiatives, although few are doing it on the same scale.
The company has 100 Twitter accounts that range from @google, which features
company news and has 2.4 million followers, to @googleapis, which features
information about Google APIs and has 6,400 followers.
Google's strategy is to use Twitter to drive traffic to their blogs and other sites. Almost
every tweet contains a link referencing other information that's more detailed than 140
characters.
"LSF Interactive's blog, New Media Chatter, allows us to share information and connect
with our clients, as well as those in our industry. Blogging shows that we employ the
very methods we recommend to our clients. Ultimately, the only way to know what
works is to try it yourself. It's all about leading by example," said Jamie Murnane,
Search and Social Media Specialist, LSF Interactive.
So how do you know if your blog is performing the way you want it to, or if your
social media efforts are reinforcing your blog or vice versa? Here are nine metrics for
calculating the ROI of your blog.
1. Social Media Buzz
Measure the social buzz generated by your blog posts by tracking retweets, social
bookmarks, likes and social mentions.
2. Followers and Friends
Measure the number of followers and quality of those followers from your blogging
compared to other social efforts on Facebook, YouTube and Linkedin.
3. Subscriptions
Compare the number of site visitors from your blog who signed up for an RSS feed or
your newsletter to sign-ups you receive from organic and paid traffic.
4. Site Traffic
Track the traffic from your blog along with the percentage of total traffic. Compare the
cost to attain this traffic with your PPC and SEO campaigns.
5. Traffic Engagement
Measure traffic engagement indicators including bounce rate, time on site, pages per visit
and repeat visits across all online marketing efforts.
6. Links
Chart inbound links to your blogs, along with anchor text and compare links to your blog
with other site links attained through SEO.
7. Keyword Rank & Click Share
Compare the rank and click through rate of your blog posts, site pages and pay-per-click
ads for target keywords, along with the percent of clicks each source generates.
8. Conversions
Track conversions of readers who visited your blog or your site via a blog post, including
percentage of total conversions, conversion rate and cost per conversion.
9. Comments
There's nothing more gratifying than hearing from your readers. Categorize comments
into positive, negative and neutral and track changes over time.
These metrics will help you articulate the value of your blog and assess your blogging
efforts so you can continue to refine and improve its value.
Remember, when choosing metrics, whether you track followers, conversions, comments
or links, more is not necessarily better. Don't just count total numbers -- find out what
those visitors or followers are doing once they get to your site and how it is converting in
customer engagement, leads or sales.
Ultimately, both blogging and social networks can bring measurable gains in brand
awareness, customer engagement, lead generation, e-commerce and retail sales, or
reputation management.
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