Dont Be a Like Counter

Social Media Analytics & ROI

Presented by Derek Belt

Social Media Specialist, King County
Follow me: @derekbelt Follow us: @kcnews

Social media at King County

My role is centrally-located in King County IT.
Bottom-up approach to social media.
Smart, data-informed strategy.
170+ social media pages w/ 220,000 fans and followers.
500+ different email and newsletter topics
320,000 subscribers reaching 1 in 9 county residents
Sent 9.6 million emails and 3.8 million texts in 2014

Counting likes is the easy part

Page Growth
Channel

Name

Twitter

@kcnews

Fans Sept.

New Fans

Growth

37,010

742

2%

Anyone can count fans and followers.

But how is this relevant to your work? How do you connect social
media to a bigger picture?

Analysis, after all, is what analytics are all about.

Heres the risk: Motrin Moms

Hooray,
attention!
(website traffic)

Heres the risk: Motrin Moms

Hooray,
attention!
(website traffic)

Example: King County Metro

For months, people had shown
tremendous support for Metro in the
face of potential budget cuts.
But the ballot initiative wasnt popular.
Press conference report:
100+ comments on Twitter
#kcmetrocuts was Seattles top trending term that day
Awesome, right?
Wrongsentiment was 80/20 against. Biggest issue > people
who dont ride the bus dont want to pay for it.
Takeaway We need to connect with non-riders.

What is social media ROI?

Social media ROI is tied to your goals

This can take many forms:

Reach (people that see your Twitter hashtag)

Engagement (likes and shares of your Facebook posts)
Traffic (clicks to your website)
Growth (new subscribers to your YouTube channel)
Time/money saved (equivalent to FTEs)

Google search for social media ROI yields 36 million results,

and all of these sites claim to be experts!
ROI is different for every project, and thats OK.

Metric

Example

Project

Calculating ROI

Reach

Hashtag views

Metro hearing
on Twitter

Single day
634 mentions of #kcmetrocuts
271K people reached
#1 trending topic in Seattle

Engagement

Likes and shares Earth Week on

Facebook

Campaign specific
12 total posts
255 interactions
22 interactions-per-post

Traffic

Clicks to
website

Archive images
on Pinterest

Monthly metrics
16 total pins
126 clicks to Archives website
8 clicks-per-pin

Growth

New subscribers Sheriffs videos

on YouTube

Event specific
8 videos posted
5K video views
50 new subscribers

Time/money
saved

Equivalent to
FTEs

Program wide
Bulky PCs cost time and efficiency
New iPads and customized app
save enough time = 8 FTEs
$6.1 million savings over 5 years

Assessors
Office iPad app

Where to find your numbers

Facebook
Facebook Insights

Twitter
Twitter Analytics Recently opened up to general users.
Hashtracking Free analytics for Twitter hashtags.
Followerwonk Find the best times to tweet based on your followers.

Instagram
Iconosquare Solid metrics and search tools for Instagram.

800-pound gorillas (paid @ $500/mo.)

Radian6 Powerful listening tool, part of Salesforce Marketing Cloud.
Simply Measured Ready-made reporting tools and graphics.

Use the free tools: Public Health

Negative KIRO 7 story airing
about food inspections.
We put out messaging
to educate people about the
inspection process.
Home page graphic on
King County website viewed
26,000 times in just a few days.
Reached 140,000 people on Facebook and Twitter, driving
73 clicks to the food inspection site.
Site visits increased by 60% over the previous week.

Start with simple benchmarks

38 clicks

Start with simple benchmarks

44 clicks
38 clicks

First surplus stories

8 interactions, 77 clicks
Both were top 10 performers on Facebook and Twitter for
the month add to monthly content calendar.
Second surplus stories were just as good
2 interactions, 95 clicks
2 posts that drive roughly 100 clicks to our website each
month Ill take it every time!

My ROI: Engagement per post

Page Performance
Channel

Name

Posts

Interactions*

Clicks

Total
Engaged

Engagement
Per Post

Twitter

@kcnews

120

1,832

629

2,461

20.1

Facebook

King County, WA

22

660

220

880

40.0

Instagram kingcountywa

15

362

N/A

362

24.1

Totals

157

2,854

849

3,703

23.6

* Interactions include retweets, mentions, favorites, likes, comments, shares, and repins.

Dont worry about the hundreds of metrics available to you in

Facebook Insights. Know what you want to measure.
King Countys social media ROI is measured by engagement per
post and reach/impressions.

My ROI: Reach/impressions
Page

Posts
in 2014

Page
Fans

Potential
Reach

Actual
Reach

Reach
Per Post

%
Reached

%
Engaged

Pets

281

2,247

631K

198K

704

31%

6%

Public
Health

579

1,935

1.1M

202K

348

18%

4%

Parks

279

2,582

720K

104K

374

14%

4%

Average

374

2,619

974K

308K

425

16%

6%

A lot of work for not a lot of ROI.

Reach = the number of people our posts are delivered to. Does
it show up in their Facebook news feed?
Engagement is great, but first we need to reach people.

Why Facebook posts dont work

200 friends

20-30
friends
15%

We dont see posts from all

of our Facebook friends.
f

WHY NOT?!!

Facebook decides for us what

we get to see.

Roughly 15% of our friends

see content we share.

Facebook ads vs. Regular posts

Metric

Regular
Posts

Facebook
Ads

Posts

16

People
reached

3,791

15,709

Clicks to
slideshow

53

313

Spent

Free

$100

Cost per
click

Free

$0.32

Five times as many people clicked on this Facebook ad,

compared to the 16 regular posts we made.

Case Study: Strategic Plan update

SeattleTimes.com Ads
Impressions: 1.8 million
Clicks to website: 2,232
Total spent: $12,000

KIROTV.com Ads
Impressions: 5.3 million
Clicks to website: 2,740
Total spent: $12,000

Facebook Ads
Impressions: 1.9 million
Clicks to website: 2,658
Total spent: $1,500

Same number of clicks to our

survey page for 10th of the cost.

Summary
Dont be a like counter.
Go beyond simple benchmarks.
Connect the dots How does social
media help achieve your goals?
Dont worry about the clinical definition of ROI, its different
for every project.
Analytics and ROI are not just about numbers Its about
telling good stories and showing real value.
Be creative, and remember, presentation is everything. Keep
it simple, keep it short.

Thank you!
Derek Belt
Social Media Specialist, King County
Email: derek.belt@kingcounty.gov
Phone: 206-263-2398
See all our social media pages @ kingcounty.gov/socialmedia