Lowcountry Geek

Seems an overwhelming majority of my blogs begin with a question; or, to be more accurate, a form of skepticism.

In this case I’m referring to the value of social media.

Even those who recently have jumped on the social media bandwagon still question the Return on Investment (ROI) for a social media campaign.

“How much is my fan page worth in earned marketing?”

“Will I make my money back?”

“Is it effective?”

Vitrue, a social media company out of Atlanta, thinks it has a formula that will help you answer that question.

Vitrue has come up with a Social Media Evaluator. Basically you plug in the url for your Facebook fan page and it spits back an annual page value based on the page’s most recent 30 days of activity.

The site assumes a $5 earned media value or CPM for each fan of your page, but you can adjust that up or down. The site also offers a few tips on how to get the most out of your fan page  (obviously their goal is to try to sell you their product.)

Here’s a bit more on how Vitrue comes up with its page value:

The Vitrue Social Page Evaluator (SPE) uses a calculation that factors in fan count, customer activity, brand activity, and a proprietary engagement multiplier. The data represents a monetary valuation of a single Facebook page based on standard digital marketing metrics, impressions, and fan exposure. The score includes a configurable cost per thousand impressions (Earned Media Value) measurement that defaults to $5. The Vitrue Social Page Evaluator does not attempt to measure value
 across multiple pages on Facebook.

So what does all of this mean?

Well I manage several fan pages, and I find that the value the Vitrue site has come up with for my pages is pretty fair.

It also, to an extent, proves the value of a fan page. Even an active, albeit small, fan page still could have a value of at least $3,000 if managed efficiently.

What the site doesn’t take into account, and couldn’t possibly take into account, is how you translate Facebook fans once you’ve directed them to your site, if that’s your intent. If you have an effective social media campaign but can’t translate that into a sale because your Web site is lacking then the campaign really isn’t worth much, is it?

On the other hand, for the purpose of this blog,  if the Vitrue formula unveils that your FREE fan page is worth thousands upon thousands of dollars in earned media, it’s suddenly a little bit easier to defend the ROI for social media and argue that’s it a necessary component of any good marketing campaign.

But we all knew that already, didn’t we?