Measuring your ROI from LinkedIn

Measuring your ROI from LinkedIn: Useful Metrics

With over 150 million members, LinkedIn is the world’s largest social network for professionals. In addition, all of the Fortune 500 companies are represented on the network at executive level. Chances are that your ideal clients use LinkedIn for networking purposes also. One of the most important questions when formulating a robust LinkedIn strategy is: “How do you measure your return on investment (ROI) from LinkedIn use?” Being able to measure your ROI helps you track your performance and reach your goals. If you fail to plan with this, you plan to fail.

LinkedIn ROI

There are various classifications of metrics for measuring LinkedIn ROI. Two of the main distinctions that can be drawn are ‘quantitative measurements’ and ‘qualitative measurements’.

Quantitative Measurements

Quantitative measurements are somewhat easier to track as it’s more about numbers than anything else. Relevant metrics which can be monitored on a weekly or monthly basis include the following:-

1. Number of LinkedIn Connections (1^st, 2^nd and 3^rd degree connections)
2. Number of new invitations to connect
3. Number of new company followers
4. Number of views of your LinkedIn profile
5. Number of times you appear in LinkedIn’s search results

Qualitative Measurements

Qualitative measurements are related to the quality or value of performance on LinkedIn. They are generally more complex but equally if not more useful to monitor. Relevant metrics, again best monitored on a weekly or monthly basis include the following:-

1. Value of private message discussions
2. Value of new or existing business connections
3. Value of referrals
4. Value of keyword optimisation
5. Value of engagement with you in LinkedIn Group(s)
6. Value of the community you are building through your LinkedIn Group(s)
7. Value of new recommendations

Conclusions

Building up a credible and valuable LinkedIn presence and strategy takes time and effort focussed on the right metrics. It’s not all about quantity of your connections – quality is just as, if not more, important than quantity. If you’d like to discuss these with me in more detail please do connect with me on LinkedIn here.

Further Reading

Viveka von Rosen has published comprehensive analysis of some of these ROI metrics for LinkedIn use and her blog is recommended for further reading on the subject.