Calculating ROI numbers for organic social media marketing can be tricky.

First, I should clarify that organic social media marketing means no ads. It’s the social media strategy and implementation that includes the regular, non-paid posts that one makes to their social media accounts.

So, why is calculating ROI so tricky when it comes to organic social? There are two main reasons.

The first reason is that there are so many variables within organic social media. Someone can see your content in their feed because they follow you, in their feed because the algorithm suggested you to them, in their messages because someone shared one of your posts with them, or in someone else’s stories because that person shared your content. There’s also human behavior within the variables. Someone may see 10 of your posts before finally following you and learning more about you. Or maybe they followed you sooner but haven’t made a decision to buy yet.

The second main reason is that organic social media is not transactional. It’s not like coupons were back in the day. You’d put a coupon in your newspaper ad and require the customer to bring the coupon into your business to get the special offer. That situation is very transactional. But we’re using organic social media for brand building, brand awareness, building trust, creating community, educating our customers and helping them understand our mission. There are so many advantages to using organic social media, and most of them end of leading to sales transactions. But it’s not always a direct line to revenue growth.

If you want to calculate ROI on your organic social media efforts, try doing these things or having your social media expert do them for you…

1. Track organic analytics on your content regularly to make sure you’re not seeing substantial dips in the numbers.

2. If you’re directing people to your website, track your website traffic to see how many visits are coming from social media.

3. Use more trackable methods of marketing like social media exclusive discount codes or social media exclusive giveaways.

4. Isolate social media marketing for certain offers. This means that you won’t use other forms of marketing during that time so that you can test it out and see if you end up getting any sales. If you’re marketing the offer on social media and Google and a billboard and emails simultaneously, it will make it difficult to tell what sales came from social media or not.

5. Remember that there are so many benefits to organic social media. Download our free guide, 7 Values of Social Media for Business Owners right here.


Written by Britney Crosson, Founder & Creative Director, Fun Love Media
Follow @britneycrosson and @funlovemedia