Tweeting of purchases is a plug that money can’t buy – Social Media ROI Monetization

How much is a a Tweet worth, in dollar terms? How about a customer sharing a purchase on Facebook – can that make you money? My article in The Australian April 1 2013 

A FEW days ago, I bought a DVD on Amazon.

At the end of the online checkout, Amazon thanked me for my purchase and then asked me to tweet, Facebook, LinkedIn or Google Plus the Amazon link with an image of the DVD, the price and a description.

Most of my friends have excellent taste (meaning the same interests and values as me!), so I pressed the “Tweet this Purchase” button.

Off it went. While it’s nice to have customers talking about your product and services with their friends online, raising brand awareness and hopefully providing great reviews, the ability to measure how much that tweet, Facebook share or Google Plus one is worth, is, well, priceless.

Those little “Facebook Share” and “Tweet This” buttons are starting to show real power in the emerging C2C (Customer to Customer) media channels.

ChompOn, a group-buying site similar to Living Social and Groupon, recently revealed that at the end of a purchase, if the customer “shares” the purchase on Facebook, it’s worth $14 to their business. Eventbrite, the social ticketing site, sold another $2.52 worth of tickets from an average of 11 people who clicked on the shared link. The customer is effectively signing up the next customer at zero cost.

Because people who participate in donations, fundraising and not-for-profits know each other, Just Giving discovered that if a donor shared the link, 6 per cent of clicks coming through that link would donate and that one share is worth about $8 in donations.

It’s worth noting that Facebook shares are worth dramatically more than tweeted links. Undoubtedly, this is because of the closeness of the social graph (a hundred close family and friends) on Facebook, versus the relative looseness of the connections on Twitter (several thousand acquaintances). Review sites such as Power Reviews have revealed that the value of a review shared to Facebook is $15.72.

Once the customer reviews the product and submits it online, if they then share that review socially, their friends click on the shared link, come back and purchase the product.

As for my DVD purchase on Amazon?

No one appeared to have bought a copy from my tweeted link, as far as I’m aware.

But then again, I’ve been too busy purchasing a new dress tweeted by a friend from an Etsy store to notice.

Laurel Papworth is a social media educator and a member of Forbes magazine’s ‘Top 50 Social Media Power Influencers’ list globally. Twitter: @silkcharm

First published in The Australian April 1 2013 (paywall)