How to Measure Social Media: A Step-By-Step Guide to Developing and Assessing Social Media ROI

Introduction

There’s no question that social media is becoming big business. A report released by BAI Kinsley, a media consultancy, predicts that social media advertising spending will hit $9.8 billion by 2016, which represents a compounding annual growth rate of 21%.¹ According to the same report, spending in 2011 was $3.8 billion. To put the forecast in perspective, the IAB estimated that TV ad spending totaled $68.7 billion in 2010, while newspapers and radio took in $22.8 billion and $15.3 billion, respectively.² Those numbers don’t include other types of social media spending like social media marketing, gaming, or social commerce. Marketers have been working hard to figure out where social media fits within their organizations and have ...