Please click here to download your complimentary copy of “Seven Guidelines for Achieving ROI from Social Media” now.

Authored by Geoff Ramsey, eMarketer CEO, this report looks at the current state of online social media measurement and ROI metrics, and how these critical indicators of success will evolve in 2010 and beyond. It explains why measurement is so rare—and shows how leaders in the field are gaining a competitive advantage.

The report covers—in detail—the following steps to success in social media:

• Establish clear marketing goals for your product or brand, and then identify social measurements that directly support those objectives.
• Organize your measurements and metrics in a logical framework.
• Take a long-term outlook with social media interactions and measurements. It’s a commitment, not a campaign.
• If hard ROI metrics are difficult to track directly, consider a range of softer metrics that can be linked back to desired business outcomes.
• Determine a dollar value for customers who choose to opt in and engage with your brand via social networks.
• In your ROI calculations, don’t overlook the value of cost savings that can result from ongoing social listening and tracking.
• Build the technological capabilities to measure your customers’ complete digital footprint—in real time.

Click here to download your copy now.

To watch playback from this Webinar, click here.

Social media has certainly got the attention of marketers today. In fact, over one-half claim they’re “participating” in the social media realm, and a majority expect to boost their social media expenditures this year.

However, when it comes to actually measuring a return on their social investment, fewer than one-fifth do so. There are many obstacles, not the least of which is a dizzying array of social media metrics to choose from. But the tide is turning. Marketers are figuring out how to justify the dollar and time expenditures required to engage with consumers in social media, both on large social networks such as Facebook and marketers’ own social microsites.

In this engaging, informative webinar, eMarketer CEO Geoff Ramsey will walk you through the seven guidelines for making and measuring a social media payout, all based on hard data, case studies and a cross-section of best practices culled from leading experts and marketers.

In this session, you’ll find out:

• Why fewer than one in five marketers currently measure social ROI
• Why 2010 will be the year social media gets an ROI mandate
• How the leaders in social media measurement enjoy a competitive advantage
• What the seven practical solutions for driving bottom-line results from your social media investment are

About Geoff Ramsey

Geoff Ramsey is one of the Internet’s most exciting digital marketing visionaries. As CEO and co-founder of eMarketer, Geoff is on the cutting edge of new research statistics, trends and best practices, covering every aspect of marketing in the digital age.

He is frequently quoted in The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, CNN, BusinessWeek, Business 2.0 and Advertising Age. A highly regarded speaker with an engaging presentation style, Geoff speaks at major industry and corporate events around the globe, including ad:tech, the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), The Conference Board, the Economist Conferences, Yahoo!, Google, OMMA and the Direct Marketing Association (DMA).

Prior to starting eMarketer, Geoff worked at several large New York ad agencies, including TBWA and Ogilvy & Mather, where he ran multinational accounts for brands including Procter & Gamble, Kraft General Foods, M&M Mars and AT&T.

To watch playback from this Webinar, click here.

Speaker: Geoff Ramsey, eMarketer CEO
What: Seven Guidelines for Achieving ROI from Social Media
When: Thursday, April 29, 2010, 1 PM ET

Sponsored by Unica.

In the weeks leading up to the Super Bowl, and the days following it, the ads that appeared in the game got plenty of online buzz, especially if they had social media tie-ins. But what about Pepsi, which decided to opt out of the game? Will it get better ROI from the Pepsi Refresh Project that than it would have from being on the Super Bowl telecast?

A few results are starting to come in. Clickz tallied up the number of Facebook fans that Super Bowl advertisers had before and after the game. Pepsi’s rival, Coke, which had several spots during the game, added nearly 390,000 fans to its page. Pepsi added about 300,000 fans, but it still trails Coke in total fans. Coke now has nearly 5 million, while Pepsi has around 515,000.

True, fan count isn’t a very good measure of ROI. But with all the money Pepsi reportedly is devoting to digital marketing for the Refresh Project, it had an opportunity to pull closer to Coke in the social-media wars. At least by this measure, Coke still won.

And while Pepsi has gotten plenty of PR in the marketing community for its decision to skip the Super Bowl, Coke’s in-game ads generated awareness among consumers—the people who actually buy its products.

Some think Pepsi made a mistake by not tying the Refresh Project in with a Super Bowl ad. Jeremiah Owyang, a partner in the Altimeter Group, wrote this week in Forbes: “By not having any in-game discussion on the advertisements, [Pepsi] was unable to use the Super Bowl or its advertisements as a catapult to launch the campaign into the social sphere. In fact, after the game, overall mentions of Pepsi and the Pepsi Refresh campaign remained relatively on the same trajectory as before.”

The Refresh Project is expected to last a year, so the good news is that Pepsi has plenty of time beyond the near-term buzz of the Super Bowl to generate ROI. But it will only be successful if it has clear objectives and ties its social media efforts in with its bottom-line results.

As Geoff Ramsey, eMarketer’s CEO, writes in the new Insight Brief “Seven Guidelines for Achieving ROI from Social Media,” “It is impossible for marketers to measure success if they do not know what their objectives are before they start a social media marketing initiative.” To succeed, Geoff asserts, marketers must establish clear marketing goals, organize their measurements into a logical framework and take a long-term approach.

PepsiCo’s Frank Cooper told SmartBrief on Social Media that he’s looking at three key measurements: relationships with consumers, social media activity and sales lift.

“First and foremost we’re focused on relationships. We are building more relationships and we have more points of contact with our consumers. That’s a positive thing. We can measure that. We know how many more people  that we’re contacting. We can also measure the activity within the social-media space. We already see today what’s happening on Twitter. We see what’s happening on Facebook — and the response has been tremendous. And then third, I think ultimately, this whole idea of allowing people to do good through our platform, we believe will actually serve us at the shelf. I believe we will see a sales lift coming from this.”

Whether Pepsi’s Refresh Project is successful or not depends on its ability to follow through and not only measure those things but also apply them to its entire marketing plan.

“Seven Guidelines for Achieving ROI from Social Media” is part of a series of eMarketer Insight Briefs focused on social media marketing. Available exclusively to Total Access subscribers, the seven briefs, along with a PowerPoint slideshow, answer the most common and most pressing questions that businesses have about social media marketing.

Total Access subscribers, log in and view the Insight Briefs now. Learn more about an eMarketer Total Access subscription today.