5 Ways to Correlate Social Media Metrics with the good old Bottom Line

The C-suite deserves to know which of their social media investments are paying off and which ones are just one big waste of time and money. The post 5 Ways to Correlate Social Media Metrics with the good old Bottom Line appeared first on VMR. 5 Ways to Correlate Social Media Metrics with the good old Bottom Line was first posted on December 9, 2010 at 8:47 pm.©2015 "VMR". Use of this feed is for personal non-commercial use only. If you are not reading this article in your feed reader, then the site is guilty of copyright infringement. Please contact me at hugh@vmrcommunications.com

Or maybe it’s just that I’d simply like to have more of it just because I can’t run my business without it. But one way or another, one thing I know for sure:

Making money ethically – and profit in particular – is the #1 goal of my business.

And if you’re in business, it better be your #1 goal as well.

I’m certainly not advocating greed or that you make money your god.

On the other hand, the amount of money your business makes is really the only metric that ultimately matters and I think those of us who live and breathe in the social media strategy world need to listen more closely to those outside of the echo chamber – especially those whose business is understanding the factors that influence the bottom line. But more on those folks in a minute.

In fairness, I need to acknowledge Jim Sterne , co-founder of the Web Analytics Association , Kyle Lacy , author of Twitter Marketing for Dummies , and Wendy Troupe, CEO of Terametric , a cross-channel analytical measurement and optimization solutions provider, who together delivered a comprehensive and thought-provoking webinar today on measuring twitter ROI. Their webinar got especially interesting for me toward the end and I thought it might make sense to continue the discussion that began to emerge on the issue of correlating social media metrics with financial ROI.

So here then is my first bit of food for thought for you to munch on courtesy of one whose business is analyzing the factors that influence a corporation’s bottom line. namely, Blake Fernandez, an oil industry research analyst with Howard Weil , an energy investment boutique that provides equity research, institutional sales and trading, and investment banking services.

According to the company’s website, their “Annual Energy Conference is one of the premier energy investor conferences in the industry… [It] attracts institutional investors from all over the world to New Orleans for presentations by, and interaction with, CEOs and other top-level management representing a broad range of energy companies.”

CFOs and CEOs at major corporations like BP take seriously what Blake Fernandez and his financial research peers have to say. Mainly because they understand money and what factors correlate with making more or less of it. I think it makes sense for those of us in the social media community to understand how social media is perceived from a financial perspective and I could not think of a better firm to help us in that regard than Howard Weil.

Mr Fernandez was kind enough to respond to an email  (an edited version of which follows) that I sent to him many months ago. So with apologies to Mr Fernandez for not publishing this sooner, I think it’s about time I shared his views. Here then is my email and the response:

Mr Fernandez’s response to my 3 questions are below:

What I find interesting about Mr. Fernandez’s response is the issue of correlation. It’s all well and good to quote stats that companies performing well in the stock market are more likely to have invested in social media communications but the more important question is whether their increased social media investments positively correlate with increased shareholder value.

That’s a question that VMR helps our clients address using a variety of methods including (1) linear, (2) polynomial, (3) exponential, (4) logistic, and (5) general nonlinear regression analysis , among other methods….Like playing rock, paper, scissors, shoot!

We believe the C-suite deserves to know which of their social media investments are paying off and which ones are just one big, fat waste of time and money.

The post 5 Ways to Correlate Social Media Metrics with the good old Bottom Line appeared first on VMR.

5 Ways to Correlate Social Media Metrics with the good old Bottom Line

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