You have a thrilling product, a rabid fanbase, and a growing arsenal of social media platforms to connect the two.

Sure, you can post content all day long, but how do you evaluate the success of one sports media campaign versus another?

How do you prove your sports marketing agency is better-equipped to land that contract? How do you justify your marketing strategy to your superiors? And how do you prove that what you’re doing aligns with your business goals?

In other words, how do you measure the ROI and success of your sports marketing campaigns?

In this post, we’ll explain why you should be measuring the ROI on your sports marketing campaigns, what metrics to track, and case studies on metric tracking in sports media.

• Why you should be measuring the ROI of your sports marketing campaigns
• The most important metrics to track
• Example use cases of these key metrics
• Case studies of effective metric tracking in sports media
• Tools to help you track these metrics

Let’s go!

Why should you measure the ROI of your sports marketing campaigns?

Even if you have a product that sells itself—like a successful sports team—blindly posting content for the sake of posting content is only going to get you so far.

By setting specific, measurable goals before embarking on any sports media campaign, you’ll be able to identify what went well, what went wrong, and what you can improve for next time.

Start with the question:

“What am I trying to accomplish?”

Is it growing your team’s social following? Is it attracting new sponsors or investors? Making existing sponsors satisfied with their investment? Creating new partnerships? Recruiting or tracking influencers? Raising awareness for a cause?

By identifying your goals in advance, you’ll know what data is needed to prove your campaign’s value to any relevant stakeholders, whether that’s your boss, a sponsor, or your own sense of accomplishment. Moreover, if you’re also using SMS marketing campaigns, email newsletters, and banner ads, this step will help determine how effective your social strategy was among others.

Once you’ve picked a goal, decide what metrics you’ll use to measure success and pick specific targets.

For example, if your goal is increasing followers, by what percentage, and over what time period? If your goal is impressing a sponsor, you may want to set targets for total reach and fan sentiment.

Not sure which metrics you should be tracking? Don’t worry, because we’re covering that next.

Which sports marketing metrics should you track?

Let’s jump into which social media metrics you should be tracking to understand your ROI, whether you’re measuring posts, particular accounts, hashtags, or your audience.

1. Visibility metrics

No matter what your goals are, it’s likely you’ll be invested in the overall visibility of your campaign.

• Reach

Reach is the number of unique users that have seen a particular post, keyword, or hashtag.

For example, if one account with 10,000 followers posts your hashtag, that hashtag has a potential reach of up to 10,000 unique users. The same account posting again on that hashtag would not increase the potential reach.

If your content has broad reach, that means it’s making its way to a large volume of users. It’s a sign that your content is being broadly shared by influential accounts.

• Impressions

Impressions is the total number of times the piece of content has been viewed (similar to page views on your website).

In contrast to reach, the same user seeing the same piece of content twice would count as two impressions.

High impressions are either a result of high reach or high repeat engagement from a core follower base.

• Follower Count

Of course, you’ll also be invested in the number of followers to your sports social media accounts, whether it’s on a single platform or across platforms.

By growing your own follower base, you can directly impact the potential reach of your own posts, relying less on influencers and shares to have your message heard.

You may also need to track the follower counts of your sponsors or your team’s athletes.

You can also track your follower growth rate, calculated as follows:

Example use case: Sponsored hashtag monitoring

Measuring hashtag analytics will be extremely important to you if your goal is to track the success of a sponsored hashtag.

Take #SuitingUpTogether for example: a Toyota-sponsored hashtag used by the LA Lakers on Twitter, Instagram, and various other platforms.

To prove the success of the sponsorship to Toyota, the Lakers could share metrics like reach, impressions, and increases in @ToyotaSoCal’s follower count over time. 

2. Engagement metrics

Beyond pure visibility, you should also track how engaged your audience is with your posts.

• Average engagement

Average engagement measures the average number of likes, comments, and shares each of your posts gets. 

Average Engagement Calculation: (likes + comments + shares) / (# posts)

This is an indicator of the volume of interactions your posts get.

• Average engagement rate

Average engagement rate is your average engagement per follower.

Average Engagement Rate Calculation: (average likes per post + average comments per post + average shares by post) / (# followers)

This ratio is more telling of the quality of your content and/or how active your followers are. If you have a lot of followers, but low engagement, you may need to step up your content game!

• Optimal post time & post length

Once you have visibility and engagement metrics, social media monitoring tools can start to give you feedback on what type of posts are providing the most value.

A tool like Keyhole can give you data like the optimal time of day to post, what type of content formats are performing best, and the length of text that gets the most engagement. 

Example use case: Game hashtags

Game hashtags are known to have tons of engagement from fans.

Whether it’s a hashtag you created for a team, or you’re joining in on a grassroots hashtag created by fans, there are sure to be hundreds, thousands, or even millions of posts on that game’s hashtag.

But how do you post on that hashtag to gain the most engagement?

Here’s an example of a hashtag, #nbafinals2019, with a game specific clip.

By analyzing the average engagement rate of posts at different times, you can identify the perfect time to post during games. Is it at tip off? Half time? During the intermission? 20 minutes before the game? As the clock winds down?

Only by measuring these metrics will you know for sure.

3. Sentiment analysis

Quantity doesn’t always mean quality. Posts, teams, or athletes can go viral for the wrong reasons—so you have to look beyond reach and engagement.

Sentiment analysis allows you to track the number of positive vs. negative posts for a given hashtag or keyword.

By tracking sentiment analysis, you’ll be able to prevent and manage PR crises, better understand your audience, and keep a finger on the pulse of your audience’s mood.

Example use case: Player sentiment

Let’s say you have a video campaign planned where you’re featuring an athlete in your organization in each video.

If bad news breaks that day about that player, you don’t want to add fuel to the fire by sharing a mistimed feel-good post about that player—especially if that post is tied to one of your sponsors.

By using social listening and sentiment analysis tools, you can make sure you’re avoiding any intended consequences.

Here’s a hilarious piece of player-driven content from Liverpool FC. But they wouldn’t want to post it soon after one of the players in the video made a costly mistake for their team.

On the flip side, if a player is trending for positive reasons, it may be the perfect time to pull an older piece of content on that player out of the archives.

4. Audience analytics

Your sports social media campaigns will only be made stronger the more you learn about your audience.

By using the native analytics tools in the social media platforms you’re using for your campaign, you can track audience metrics like:

• Countries
• Language
• Gender
• Keywords
• Devices

Example use case: Multi-lingual campaigns

By using audience analytics, you may learn you have a growing demographic that you should tailor more of your content to.

Because they’re located in a southern US state with many Spanish speakers, the Arizona Coyotes launched Spanish versions of all of their social media accounts in 2019.

They would have been able to justify that decision in advance by using audience analytics on their English-only accounts.

5. Influencer analytics

Engaging with your team’s top fans is an amazing way to make fans for life.

By inviting influencers into your sports marketing strategy, you’ll give them a platform to share their authentic passion that’s sure to resonate with your wider audience.

Example use case: Targeting new demographics

By using Keyhole’s influencer tracking tools, you’ll be able to identify, compare, and measure potential and existing influencers with all the metrics we’ve already mentioned above.

For example, if you’re looking to reach a demographic that your audience analytics say you’re not currently reaching, you can seek out influencers whose content clearly resonates with that exact demographic.

Other business metrics

1. Actual ROI

Of course, the truest and simplest way to track your ROI is to track the financial cost of your strategy compared to the overall gain of your strategy.

But tracking your financial gains isn’t always easy.

If you know the financial value of a single follower, you could estimate revenue gained from gained followers.

Or if you can link landing or renewing a particular sponsorship to your marketing campaign, you can consider that your financial win.

2. Website analytics

You can also turn to your website analytics to prove the effectiveness of your campaign. Did your website traffic go up after your campaign started? Did it go down once it stopped? 

Linking your marketing campaigns to other metrics outside of social media shouldn’t be ignored!

Sports marketing ROI case studies

1. The Special Olympics

The Special Olympics are a huge sports endeavor—with nearly 5 million athletes with intellectual disabilities participating worldwide.

At that scale, tracking the ROI of their social media campaigns is a tall order.

Ryan Eades, Director of Digital and Social Engagement at the Special Olympics turned to Keyhole to track the ROI of their social media efforts.

They sorted their audience by follower count and engagement to identify their most influential ambassadors.

Once they linked up with model and actress Brooklyn Decker, they used Keyhole to track engagements and conversions linked directly to her posts.

2. SportQuake, the data-driven sports marketing agency

Sports marketing agencies have the most to gain from tracking ROI.

As they’re not in-house employees, they have to prove the potential and actual benefits of every campaign they run for any organization.

They need as much data as they can get.

SportQuake is one of those agencies. They are often in a position where they’re trying to recruit influencers to aid in marketing campaigns.

But they look beyond follower counts. They want to make sure the influencers they work with are actually likable.

That’s why SportQuake uses Keyhole’s sentiment analysis metrics to monitor the audience sentiment towards a particular influencer—allowing them to have a data-driven approach to choosing the right fit for their campaigns.

3. MELT Atlanta’s cool approach to analytics

MELT Atlanta is a sports marketing agency that connects major brands with top athletes and athletic events.

For example, their most recent project is a marketing campaign connecting Coca Cola with athletes in the 2020 PyeongChang Winter Olympics.

To MELT, tracking the success of their campaigns is crucial to proving ROI for their clients.

“Having a reliable number of impressions and reach for the hashtag that we are able to get within seconds of logging in has definitely solved our biggest pain point,” said Jenna Cook, their Digital & Social Media Manager.

With Keyhole, they track brand accounts, athlete accounts, hashtags, their most engaging posts, best posting times, follower insights, and more.

By having an easily accessible dashboard with their most crucial metrics, they can easily answer whether or not their clients are seeing ROI on their campaigns within seconds.

How to use Keyhole to track your sports marketing ROI

No matter what your goals are for your marketing campaign, you’re going to need to prove your campaign’s effectiveness with hard data.

By using Keyhole’s advanced social listening tools like hashtag analytics, influencer monitoring, keyword tracking, sentiment analysis, and more, you’ll have a wide range of metrics to prove the success of your marketing campaigns.

Related Articles:

Influencer Marketing ROI: Calculate ROI and Maximize Your Social Impact

Media Monitoring 101: What It Is And How It Works[Tools Included]

The post Sports Marketing: Tracking Social Media ROI, Influencers, And Engagement appeared first on Keyhole.

Jelly is a cutting-edge Digital Agency based in Santiago, Chile.

They distinguish themselves with an almost exclusively digital focus, being “99.9% digital”, and flaunting big-deal clients like Toyota, Lenovo, and Mallplaza among others.

“Digital rules. If you focus on digital in the next 3-5 years you should be able to make it. That’s why digital is our core.”

Manu Chatlani
Executive Director

But with the exceptional amount of digital content out there today, Jelly’s challenge is to consistently deliver groundbreaking campaigns that stand out from the noise.

This is how they do it:

First, by promoting “rested brains” for their employees. This includes 5-week vacations for everyone on the team and working from home every Friday (because, as Manu told us, “ideas are not tied to a desk”).

The second step is putting the rested brains to work, milking every second of at-work time to make sure that any campaign they put out on social is being seen and well-received by any of the 3.03 billion social media users who may see it.

But, as you can imagine, managing these many impressions is not easy.

“Have you ever seen Guardians of the Galaxy from Marvel? It’s like you are in that spaceship. You are traveling, you know where you’re heading and you have no one ahead of you.

Then, suddenly, you have 20 enemy ships and you need to make a decision. Do you shoot, run, hide? My job is a lot like that. I am always making decisions on how to handle situations that come up. It’s non-stop.”

via GIPHY

Luckily, Keyhole makes analyzing social media much easier ?.

“Keyhole gives you a simplified view of what’s happening with a current issue: it could be a hashtag, a trend, it could be an account. Whatever it is, you can go in and get a quick snapshot of what’s happening.”

For example, Jelly recently launched an awareness campaign that resulted in over 23 million impressions on social in 90 days. These numbers are almost impossible to track manually.

Using Keyhole, Manu’s team (as well as their client) was able to instantly see this kind of key information about their campaign’s performance both as it happened in real-time and at review stages once the campaign was done.

By analyzing all social media interactions and displaying the data in a simple way that takes out the guesswork, Keyhole helps Manu’s team to focus on what’s important. This way, brains don’t get over-tired with the nitty-gritty numbers, but simply use the data to make the best decisions possible.

This is why Manu sees Keyhole as a kind of social media X-ray. You can quickly get to the bottom line that you’re looking for without having to do extra digging.

“It’s like an X-ray at an emergency room. Even if there’s no time for something very exhaustive at first, you need to move quickly. If we are promoting a campaign we can know right away if it’s working or not. I can find out easily without having to take in the full volume of the conversation.”

With this kind of approach, where every member of the team can dedicate their full work time to what’s important, Jelly’s continuing success is no wonder. Check out their website to see what they are up to, and the type of results that can be produced by this kind of company.

The post How To X-Ray Social Media, According To Manu From Jelly appeared first on Keyhole.

NBC Sports is part of NBCUniversal, a household name in the world of entertainment, broadcasting and production marketing. Headquartered in Manhattan, NBCUniversal runs a vast entertainment and news television network and has also established various internet-based businesses and world-renowned theme parks. 

What is the American Century Celebrity Golf Championship Tournament? 

The American Century Championship takes place every July at Edgewood Tahoe Golf Course in Lake Tahoe. Big time celebrities like Stephen Curry, Michael Jordan & Justin Timberlake have teed it up at the event in the past.

Less Support and More Responsibility 

The NBC Sports programming and scheduling team was put in charge of managing the American Century Golf Tournament, in addition to their daily tasks.

“This event takes place during a busy part of our year, as a result, people are asked to assume tasks that may not be in their day to day job description.  Over the years, American Century, our title sponsor, was outsourcing a group to track all the social buzz around the event.  In 2017, they asked if we would be able to bring the job in house.”

With other departments tied up, the responsibilities piled up and the programming team was forced to track hashtags and keywords for them despite not having the proper experience or background. 

Manually Tracking Hashtags and Keywords – A Difficult Task

“So, we had our interns just following the hashtag and trying to see what the chatter around the event was like. And we mostly focused on what we were getting from our handles,” said Nick.

The manual tracking of hashtags and keywords is a tedious and obsolete process. But, this wasn’t the only challenge NBCUniversal was faced with while tracking and tracing details to share with their main sponsor, American Century.

Tracking down thousands of impressions and hundreds of keywords was one thing, but analyzing the data to take away tangible, actionable insights was an even bigger challenge. 

Not long after, Nick and his team realized that they wouldn’t be able to offer any in-depth social analytics or social media insights to their sponsors if they continued manually tracking everything.

“This raw and unstructured data wasn’t that handy to impress. This half-cooked bacon needed that final touch to become well-structured and easy to analyze.”

And that’s where Keyhole came in.

A Social Media Analytics Tool Tracking Hashtags and Keywords 

NBCUniversal provides seminars that their employees can attend to learn about things outside of their business. It was in one of these seminars that Nick was first introduced to the digital world of Keyhole. 

Nick wasn’t satisfied with the insights coming from manually tracking the conversation on social media. Keyhole’s advanced functionality and easy-to-use interface was the ultimate answer to his prayers.       

One Quick and Easy Solution: Keyhole

Nick and his team got a powerful social media analytics tool in the shape of Keyhole.

This also helped the team discover what influencers and celebrities were already talking about the event. 

“We didn’t just use it for the keyword impressions we usually have. We were tracking our handle, tracking the hashtags, and then, any other generic keyword that could be related to the event.”

Keyhole was a one stop shop for all of their pain points, addressing account tracking and hashtag tracking in one easy dashboard.

Establishing a Brand Name and proving ROI to Chief Sponsor

For some time, the American Century Celebrity Golf Championship, was just being referred to as a ‘Celebrity Golf’ event – completely overlooking the chief sponsor of the event, American Century. 

“We’ve seen almost a 50% drop in people talking about the event just as ‘Celebrity Golf’, and they are more using the actual event name.”

Now, Nick can confidently tell their sponsors that NBCUniversal has increased impressions for the event while also decreasing the number of people who are talking about the event generically. 

Proving ROI and showing that the event has been beneficial for American Century. 

Reflecting on Keyhole and the results he achieved, Nick said: “The tool is super easy to use, and it just made our lives easier. I think what we’ve been able to provide to American Century is more reliable than what we were doing manually. With Keyhole, we have credible numbers that we’re able to share and create stories to help us strengthen the relationship that we have with them. And hopefully, extend our partnership with them way into the future.”

Keyhole is a real-time conversation tracker that provides keyword and hashtag analytics for Twitter and Instagram. Get started for free and search your brand.

The post How NBC Sports Made American Century Golf Championship A Success appeared first on Keyhole.

The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) works to help local communities conserve natural resources. Moreover, it transform markets and policies towards sustainability and protect species and their habitats.

All of their efforts ensure that their values of sustainability are influencing decision-making from a local to a global scale.  

With the ultimate goal of building a sustainable world for the generations to come, the WWF runs projects around the globe. Two of which are the One Planet City Challenge (OPPC), and the associated We Love Cities campaign.

Filip Olsok, the Program Coordinator at WWF Sweden, is primarily responsible for coordinating these two projects. 

In an effort to engage citizens around the world, WWF launched the We Love Cities initiative. This campaign designed to encourage people around the world to express their love and support for the actions their cities are taking to tackle climate change, and to ensure a climate-safe future for all.

WWF uses this campaign to encourage people to learn about climate change and what their cities are doing to tackle the issue.

Filip is in charge of keeping everything aligned between the various WWF offices, who are in turn responsible for managing the participating cities.

“So, we use the love and pride for one’s city as a shortcut for raising awareness about the role of cities in climate action and sustainability in general.” 

As Project Manager, Filip is also responsible for hashtag tracking. Specifically, he has to monitor the traction of all 54 hashtags on different social media platforms.

The Need for A Social Media Monitoring Tool

When Filip first joined the team in 2018, WWF wasn’t using any social media monitoring tools for the We Love Cities campaign.

Filip knew that monitoring hashtags for over 50 participating cities was no easy task. Additionally, monitoring hashtag data and compiling it in a presentable was not possible without the help of a hashtag tracking tool. 

He tested many tools including Hootsuite, Sprout Social and Brand24 but ultimately decided to go with Keyhole.

“All of them were quite expensive and Sprout Social, the second option we were considering, even charged per hashtag. Plus, Keyhole was much more accessible, so it tipped the scale in its favour.”

In 2020, Filip was assigned the We Love Cities campaign again. It was a no-brainer for him to recommend Keyhole as a social media hashtag tracking tool to the campaign manager with whom he had also worked in 2018. 

A User-Friendly Tracking Solution 

WWF needed a social media analytics tool that could comprehensively track all the hashtags of the participating cities. The, sort them with corresponding dates and IDs, so that the team could see how many times a specific ID has voted/posted about a city in a day. 

To facilitate hashtag tracking, this campaign assigned a unique hashtag to each city. The city of Vancouver, for example, was given #WeLoveVancouver.

Filip would then dive into the posts collected from Keyhole for each hashtag and count one vote per user from each social media account in 24 hours. In other words, if a person posted the same hashtag from the same account 60 times in 24 hours, it would still be counted as one vote.

Using Keyhole to Prove Success and ROI

WWF’s goal for this particular campaign was to spread the message of sustainability and to raise awareness about the role cities play in climate change. This included tracking both the negative impact and the potential that cities have to develop and implement solutions.  

Filip looked to Keyhole to determine the success of the hashtag monitoring campaign.

“I put the 54 city hashtags as a group within the trackers. So, it gives me the overall hashtags report and I could look at the total aggregate and regional engagement. Keyhole made it so easy to know the overall numbers.

And then on a more micro level, I could look at each hashtag to find out the most engaging posts. I was able to know the three most engaging posts from each of the 54 hashtags. That was quite a simple way to determine what type of content was most interesting for our audience.”

The way that Keyholes aggregates hashtag tracking data into easy-to-read graphs was the cherry on top for him.

“I am quite obsessed with graphs and putting numbers into colours and stuff. So, the user interface where you could see the engagement and all the different statistics into graphs was very helpful.”

Keyhole’s Impact

When discussing the impact Keyhole had on his team’s success hashtag monitoring in this campaign, Filip said:

Keyhole’s simple-to-manage dashboard made the task of conducting hashtag monitoring on 54 city hashtags quite easy. Also, it helped Filip quickly find the winner – which otherwise would have been a lengthy process. 

“We would not be able to correctly measure and track the usage of our 50 plus campaign hashtags in an easy all-in-one place sort of dashboard, which kind of makes it much faster to compare, to download results, to get the data from different perspectives based on the rules and how we set up our counting approach and deciding the winner. I think it would take years to search for hashtags and try to count manually. So, yeah, we would not be able to find the winner of the campaign or easily summarize our overall campaign success in terms of engagement reach without a solution like Keyhole.”

The post How Keyhole’s Hashtag Tracking Powered WWF’s We Love Cities Campaign appeared first on Keyhole.

Define American is a media advocacy organization that fights anti-immigrant hate in America through authentic storytelling. The organization aims to shed light on real-life immigrant stories by shifting the conversation about immigrants, identity, and citizenship in a changing America.

Juno’s Role at Define American

Juno joined the organization as a digital strategist to design and manage campaigns from a strategic perspective, keeping them aligned to the organization’s objectives. 

“I manage all the social media channels – especially the national ones. I’m in charge of doing the backend of the digital campaigns to make sure everything is strategized.”

The Issue: Measuring the Campaign Impact  

When it came time to measure the impact of a recent campaign, Juno realized that her team did not have access to the right tools to measure the reach and engagement around a campaign’s hashtag. 

As a narrative and culture change focused organization, Define American has a research department in charge of studying the impact of Define American’s work, including campaigns. Juno was looking for a tool that could demonstrate with data that the work was making a difference. 

“We have a whole research person to do that (tracking) to measure whether or not the work we’re doing is effective and if we’re changing minds and hearts.”

Manual Tracking was Time-Consuming, Yet Incomplete

Manually tracking data was one-dimensional, general and not streamlined enough to be presented in a clear form. Although they were monitoring the total hashtag usage and measuring engagement, Juno knew it was still an incomplete way of getting insights. 

“It took so much time to do, to track all of that and add it all up on my end.”

These outdated ways of tracking data consumed most of her time and the returns were insufficient. 

Taking Keyhole for a Test Drive

When Define American introduced their #BlackandGold campaign – a virtual event to create solidarity and support for the Black and Asian communities – they needed to know the impact of it. Define American has a lot of connections with celebrities and so, the team wanted to measure the impact that influencers had on the performance of the campaign.

“They were seeking all this data that our current software was never going to be able to give us.”

Juno knew that there was a better way. She started researching different social listening tools, gave Keyhole a try and instantly fell in love with it.

With the click of a button, Juno was able to share the link to her Keyhole tracker with her entire team and they were immediately impressed with the data they previously didn’t have access to.

And then Define American took Keyhole for another test run, this time with another campaign, #Immigrad – a virtual celebration for immigrant graduates. Many celebrities were involved – one of them being Selena Gomez. Selena put together a video for #Immigrad and Juno’s team wanted to track the performance and impact of that video post.

Using Keyhole, Juno was able to see how far and wide the reach was, and even discovered that the campaign reached Norway!

“There were so many things that were happening outside the scope of our country that we didn’t realize.”

How Juno Uses Keyhole

“It was the sentiment score. That’s what sealed the deal for me…. And the second thing was being able to locate where the major engagements were at.”

Conversations around immigrants are still considered to be a sensitive topic for many in the US. So, gauging a campaign in terms of sentiment was the most important task. 

For Define American, Keyhole provided an opportunity to know what worked well to gain the positive sentiment of the masses and spread it across the country. It’s crucial for them that they’re not preaching to the choir, and that their campaigns target the people in the middle – those that lean a little to the left, and a little to the right. 

With #Immigrad for example, Juno could see that the overall sentiment was shifting to positive closer to the end of the campaign. This helped them prove it was worth all the time and resources that were put into making this event happen. The location data underscored the success of the campaign, showing the states that had the most support. 

Achieving 96% Positive Sentiment with Keyhole

It is crucial to the organization that their campaigns are able to shift the narrative around immigrants to a more positive light. And through Keyhole, Juno was able to prove it with numbers.

Define American was receiving some negative reactions to their campaign, which ended up overshadowing the presence of positive sentiments. Juno traced these elements and concluded that many of the people weren’t able to relate or understand the true concept of the campaign. 

Through Keyhole, Juno was able to narrow down the campaign to target like-minded people. 

“What we did was start targeting more universities and college chapters. So, they can start promoting them on their own pages.”

Keyhole vs Sprout Social: And the Winner is…

The team Define American also tried out Sprout Social, another reputable social media management platform. Their shift from Sprout Social to Keyhole was mainly based on two pain points: high price and unavailability of location data. For tracking a few keywords, she just could not justify the subscription price.

“They also have social listening, but it’s way too expensive. It’s sort of $500 or $600 as a non-profit for three keywords. It was way too much for me.”

Sprout Social offered valuable data but it didn’t break down posts by cities like Keyhole does.

Now Juno is an Advocate for Keyhole!

Whenever asked to recommend a social media listening tool, she’s quick to speak about the success that Keyhole brought to her team. 

The post How Define American Used Keyhole For Campaign Success In Real Time appeared first on Keyhole.

“When people come to Napa, the first thing that they think of is great wine. What goes along with great wine is great food, and what pairs perfectly with food and wine is music. Add beautiful rolling hills, vineyards, and world-class hospitality and you have what we call BottleRock Napa Valley.”

-Jasa Laliberte, Marketing Manager.

The festival was originally started in 2013, and by 2015 was selling out. In 2018, with an impressive lineup, festival tickets sold out earlier than ever before, spurring successful sales and a dedicated fanbase in the years of the festival after.

“We really focus a lot on customer experience, paying particular emphasis to our 4 different levels of VIP and providing an all-around amazing experience for the concert-goer from start to finish. In the same way that Napa provides such amazing hospitality, we try to do the same thing at our festival.”

Why Keyhole?

The marketing team at BottleRock accomplishes some pretty awesome feats through our tool year-round. Check it out! They include:

Identifying & Finding Influencers

Jasa’s team is able to regularly find and engage artists and influencers they didn’t know were speaking about BottleRock through Keyhole’s Influencers feature.

The ‘Influencers’ tab in Keyhole shows top users engaging with your hashtag or keyword, allowing you to engage with them and their content directly from the platform.

“Before Keyhole, I wasn’t seeing some of the bigger accounts that were talking about us. I just never knew they were out there being a positive influencer for us! So now I’m definitely looking into those people. We have kind of a daily ‘a-ha!’ moment with Keyhole.”

Identifying Trends by Tracking Hashtags Year-Round

According to Jasa, Keyhole’s biggest impact is saving time by clearly depicting cross-platform data.

We asked Jasa what she did before Keyhole, to which she laughingly replied, “Well, I had lots of spreadsheets!”

“The biggest thing that’s been helpful for us is being able to actually see our overall impressions online. The data was on different platforms and we were not able to see what other people were saying about us very easily. Now we are actually able to put a number and a statistic behind it.”

By tracking relevant hashtags and keywords year-round, Jasa’s team is also able to identify relevant trends as they happen, and adjust their marketing strategies and event accordingly.

“The biggest things are the analytics behind it, the numbers. We’ve tracked hashtags for the last 5 years, but we’ve never done it all year round–so it’s been beneficial for us to see different trends and quantify them.”

By being able to identify trends and track keywords and hashtags, it brings numerous benefits to the team by being able to measure reach and engagement, benchmark against competitors or other similar festivals, as well as track how people feel about milestones such as lineup announcements. 

Sharing User Generated Content Live At Your Event

Keyhole offers a Media Wall feature that’s extremely easy to moderate, and allows your audience to share content and connect on any sized screen. 

Whether it’s a massive jumbotron or simply a mobile app, help your event attendees connect and share experiences through the Media Wall feature. 

BottleRock uses Keyhole’s Media Wall to live stream content that festival attendees share on their social media to enhance the experience.

The team can also control what is actually being displayed on the Media Wall with the handy moderation feature – filtering out any content that may be inappropriate or irrelevant. 

Optimizing Content

Lastly, Keyhole helps with content creation by giving insight into the types of conversations users are having.

Keyhole’s word cloud for the ‘#BottleRock’ Keyword tracker shows what else people discuss when talking about Napa online.

“It is influencing our strategy. As we are moving to figure out specific copy and content, we are looking at what we’re putting out there in terms of hashtags and keywords, and figuring out what themes and trends we are seeing…what is being engaged with the most. We try and find that theme and replicate it.”

The word cloud helps to identify relevant themes and topics that can bring insights into marketing strategies by shining light on subjects that are also being buzzed about. 

Keyhole Streamlines Marketing Processes

Overall, Keyhole’s data has helped BottleRock’s marketing team save time and simplify their processes, allowing them to focus on what’s most important: creating unforgettable festival experiences and selling out year after year.

What can Keyhole do for you? Sign up for a 3-day free trial and find out!

Related Articles:

Broadcast and Media Companies: Improving Performance with Social Media Analytics

How NBC Universal Uses Keyhole to Flag Security Breaches

Keyhole is a real-time conversation tracker that provides keyword + hashtag analytics and social media analytics across platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Get started for free here.

The post How BottleRock Music Festival Amps Up Influencer Engagement With Keyhole appeared first on Keyhole.

Asking and pitching for an eSports sponsorship takes planning, research, and a bit of marketing savvy.

Sponsors care about more than just your follower or subscriber counts—they want to know how much you’re truly able to influence your audience, and whether your audience matches their target demographic.

So, to land a sponsorship, you’ll need a compelling sales pitch backed by data. Here’s how to ask for an esports sponsorship using key insights from your social media metrics.

Which Metrics Should You Track to Secure Sponsorships?

Every business is looking to make data-driven decisions. When seeking out influencers for their brand, eSports sponsors want to know:

• how big
  your audience is?
• who your audience is
• how much influence
  you have over your audience

There are thousands of esports gamers out there, so you need to present them with specific data on why they should choose you or your team over anyone else.

As we go through these metrics, keep in mind that you can track and present data related to:

• Your main team
  accounts
• Your team
  members’ accounts
• Your team’s branded
  hashtag
• Your sponsors’
  accounts
• Tournaments
  you’re playing in

It’s about painting a full picture of everything your team can bring to their brand.

Here are the key metrics that can help you ask for an esports sponsorship:

Follower Count

Your total follower count is the number of fans, subscribers, or followers you have on your social media accounts.

More followers, of course, translates to more views, shares, and comments on your content—so gaining followers is the main goal for most social accounts.

That said, follower count is only a surface-level indicator of an account’s popularity. Accounts with equal numbers of followers can see wildly different audience engagement depending on the quality of the posts, when posts are made, or how often the posts are shared by other influencers.

Why followers matter to eSports sponsors: High follower counts are a great way to get your foot in the door with sponsors. But buying fake social media followers is a real thing, so sponsors want to know they’re getting the real deal. You’ll need more compelling audience metrics to make a great sales pitch, but luckily there are plenty of product pitch deck examples to get inspired from.

Bonus Tip: A steady follower growth rate is an indicator of your ability to grow your audience organically over time, vs. a one-time flash in the pan. Using Keyhole, you can showcase your historical follower growth rate.

Impressions

Impressions are a measure of the total number of times your content was displayed on someone’s feed.

Each social media network has a slightly different method for calculating impressions, but in general, they capture the total exposure of your posts.

On platforms like YouTube and Twitch, views would be considered an impression.

Raw impression metrics are useful on their own: they provide a count of the number of views on your posts and videos. But in context with other metrics, like followers and reach, they can also help measure your ability to resonate with your audience.

For example, if your post reaches 10,000 unique users, but receives 30,000 impressions, that means your average audience member came back to your post 3 times. That’s a telltale sign you’ve created something great.

Why impressions matter to eSports sponsors: Branding is all about repeated exposure. The more times your sponsored content will be viewed, the more impact it will have on your sponsor’s brand.

Bonus Tip:
Keyhole can show you the time of day and day of the week when your posts receive the most impressions. You can modify your posting times based on what times are the most optimal to share content. Having that data is a great way to get the most out of sponsored posts.

Reach

Reach is a measure of how many people saw your social media content.

Unlike impressions, reach doesn’t count multiple viewings from the same user.

Reach is therefore a measure of the total spread of your content. Of course, the more followers you have, the more reach you’ll get on the average post.

Beyond your follower base, though, your reach metrics can showcase your ability to go viral. For example, on platforms with sharing, like Facebook and Twitter, high reach could mean lots of reshares of your post. On platforms without the re-share option, like Instagram or TikTok, this could mean your posts receive high favorability from the feed algorithms.

Why reach matters to eSports sponsors: Most sponsors want to see their content reach as many people as possible. High reach on your content indicates an ability to connect with large audiences.

Engagement & Engagement Rate

Engagement is a measure of how much your audience interacts with your content. Likes, comments, shares, mentions, retweets, favs, and reactions all follow under the umbrella of engagements.

Engagement rate is a formula that measures how much interaction a social media account receives relative to another metrics—like followers, impressions, posts, or reach. Engagement rate is a truer measurement of your content’s ability to resonate with people.

For example, an account that receives 100 engagements across 50 posts has an engagement rate of 2 engagements per post, and isn’t nearly as impressive as an account that receives 100 engagements on a single post.

Why engagement matters to eSports sponsors: Brands want to form an emotional connection with their target audience. High engagement rates mean that your content naturally speaks to people, and your sponsors want to be associated with that positive emotional connection.

Keyhole is a real-time conversation tracker that provides keyword + hashtag analytics and social media analytics across platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Follower Insights

None of the above metrics can tell you anything about who follows you. And that’s why sponsors are coming to you in the first place: because you have a specific audience they need.

Social media analytics tools can uncover key audience demographics, like which countries your followers are from, their gender, the keywords they interact with most often, and which devices they use.

Why follower insights matter to eSports sponsors: Most brands have a complete persona in mind of the exact demographic they want to target. For example, a brand could be targeting female gamers in the United States own PCs and love cats. If you can prove that your audience matches up with their target audience, you’re far more likely to land that sponsorship.

Bonus Tip:
Regularly checking in on your follower insights can help you tailor your content more closely to your audience, which can help raise all your other metrics.

Audience Sentiment

Here’s where you can take things to the next level.

Using sentiment analysis, you can measure how people feel about you. Sentiment analysis is an automated process that scans text for words associated with positive or negative emotions.

Major brands use sentiment analysis for market research, customer service, and reputation management, but gamers can use sentiment analysis to show how much their audience loves them.

Why sentiment matters to eSports sponsors: Brands are highly selective when choosing who to sponsor, because their brand is their currency.

They’re looking to create positive associations, so they can’t risk associating with unlikeable personalities. If you can prove you’re not just popular, but also well-liked, that’s another argument in your favor.

How to Build an eSports Pitch Deck with Social Media Metrics

Now that you’re an expert in the most important social media metrics, it’s time to craft your data into a sales pitch and create a compelling marketing report.

Here are the key steps to building a great presentation when asking for an eSports sponsorship:

1. Research the Sponsor’s Brand

Learn as much as you can about the sponsor’s brand and business goals. Research their past marketing campaigns, press releases, recent product launches, social media accounts, and blogs.

Ask yourself:

• Are they
  trying to increase brand awareness?
• Do they have
  an active social media presence?
• Who appears to
  be their target audience? Does it align with your audience?
• Are you a
  natural fit for their brand?

2. Detail How You’ll Solve Their Problems

As you go through these questions, write down your answers in as much detail as possible. As you write, you’ll start to uncover a narrative to help guide your sales pitch.

You should be able to answer how your players and your brand can help move them closer to their business goals.

The goal here is to establish how you can help them. Everything should be outcome focused.

3. Describe Your Audience

Remember:

Sponsors want to know you can reach their target audience and that you can do so with high volume. You must convince them that your audience is their dream audience.

Using a tool like Keyhole, you can pull your audience demographic data. Build a persona of one or two typical audience members, and back up those personas with hard data.

To take things to the next level, you can pull demographic data on the potential sponsor’s audience to illustrate the current gap that you fill.

For example, “You’re looking to grow your brand with the younger, Gen Z audience. Today, only 5% of your followers are under 25 years old. That’s where we can help you. 60% of our team’s social media audience is under the age of 25. They’re also predominantly male, at 75%, which is your core demographic.”

4. Gather Compelling Data

Now is the time to back everything up with data. Show off your impressions, reach, and engagement, detailing how many eyeballs see your content across every platform.

For example, “Our content receives 3,000,000 monthly impressions, with a reach of 500,000 people. Our content has an engagement rate of 50 engagements per post, showing that our audience interacts a lot with our content.”

You can take things over the top with audience sentiment data, and actual examples of your mentions.

“90% of posts about our brand are positive. Our audience most-often uses words like ‘awesome’, ‘amazing’, and ‘sick’ when talking about us.”

5. Tie Everything Back to Their Business Goals

In as much detail as possible, tie everything back to the brand’s return on investment.

The more proof you have that you can make an impact for your sponsors, the better.

If you’ve worked with other sponsors, show how you’ve grown their audience or increased their follower count.

For example, “Before our previous sponsorship with Lenovo, we had an overlap of only 100 followers with their brand. After a 6-month sponsorship with over 500,000 impressions on our sponsored content, we now have an overlap of 5,000 followers. Not only did we increase their reach, our sponsored links to their website generated over 50,000 page views and over $100,000 in direct sales.”

6. Make it Pretty

This is a true sales presentation, so make sure it looks like one.

If you’re not a professional designer, you can still easily design a beautiful presentation using tools, or you can take a look at other content creation tools.

Make sure to visualize your data: nobody wants to see flat numbers.

Create charts and infographics to highlight your most compelling data points.

End your presentation with a compelling call to action, and you’re good to go.

With this pitch deck in hand, you’ll be sure to land that esports sponsorship.

Case Study: How One of Our eSports Clients uses Keyhole

One of our eSports clients has a huge presence in the gaming world.

Since their founding in 2009, they’ve won six North American League of Legends Championship Series. This particular eSports league has players in League of Legends, Apex Legends, Hearthstone, Super Smash Bros, Fortnite, and more.

As a collective of pro gamers, sponsorships are a big part of their income. Our client is currently sponsored by:

• Logitech
• Lenovo
• Twitch
• Geico
• Grubhub
• Game Fuel

To land and keep major sponsors like these, they use Keyhole to track their social media analytics data.

Here’s how they do it:

Brand Monitoring

Our client regularly reviews mentions and engagements to their team’s social media accounts to keep their finger on the pulse of their overall brand sentiment.

They also track relevant keywords and hashtags across social media tools, news sites, and forums. For example, they track branded keywords that are relevant to their league and their sponsors.

And they’re not just interested in volume, they want to know who’s talking about them and what they’re saying.

Having evidence for a sponsor that their team’s brand is highly regarded is a big plus.

Team Member Tracking

Our client also uses Keyhole to track their team members’ individual accounts—not to spy on them, but to track their engagement rates.

This helps them narrow down which team members are generating the most buzz for their brand.

They track accounts like JONATHAN, who has over 550,000 YouTube subscribers, and ImperialHal, who has over 180,000 Twitch followers. They also track their own branded accounts in different regions.

They’re also invested in overall impressions and reach across all these accounts, because they can prove the total viewership of their audience to help secure even better sponsorships.

Influencer Management

This client tracks over 250 influencers, grouped in Keyhole’s Influencer Management feature by category.

They typically use the Influencer Management feature to group each individual players’ social media accounts and aggregate the metrics across different platforms to paint a fuller picture of how each player contributes to our clients overall profile.

Grouping their influencers by category helps them aggregate metrics across different accounts and platforms, because their players are scattered across networks like Twitch, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram.

Sponsor Tracking

This is our clients’ most innovative use of Keyhole.

Not only do they track their own accounts, they also track their sponsor’s accounts, keywords, and hashtags. They monitor sponsors such as Lenovo, Geico, Gamefuel, and Grubhub to keep an eye on each sponsors’ account performance.

They can even track those brands’ other sponsorships. This allows them to measure their impact on their sponsor’s brands compared to their competitors, proving the ROI on their partnership.

Earn More Sponsorships with Keyhole

Using compelling data like impressions, reach, and engagement can help you land more esports sponsorships.

Keyhole can help you track, gather, and report on that data in a simple, yet meaningful way.

Related Articles:

eSports: Increasing Revenue and Doubling Down on Monetization [+ Case Study!]

Social Media for Nonprofits: Proving Your ROI and Impact through Social Media Analytics

The post Pitching eSports Sponsors: How To Use Social Media Metrics To Secure Sponsors appeared first on Keyhole.

It’s no secret that the eSports culture is rapidly growing, and with rapid expansion, the possibilities for developing revenue streams expand as well. 

Still, let’s face it – many seem to struggle to understand how to properly monetize eSports, and how to take control of potential or existing revenue streams. 

We’re here to help you double down on revenue streams for your eSports team.

Whether you’re new to the world of eSports or a seasoned expert, let’s brush up on some eSports basics prior to our eSports monetization strategies.

What Are eSports?

Even if you’re not an eSports enthusiast, you must have heard the term once or twice. But don’t worry if you are not sure what it means – many who are quite familiar with eSports still struggle to define them. 

The term eSports refers to an organized, multiplayer video game tournament which can take place individually or in teams. 

Although many amateur players engage with eSports in some form, eSports is known to be competitive gaming at a very professional level. 

eSports have made their way to popularity through platforms such as YouTube and Twitch, and they’ve established themselves as a legitimate sporting competition.

Here’s why: in today’s digitalized society, it’s easier than ever to give credibility and status to online accomplishments.

Suggested Read: YouTube Analytics: 21 Metrics That You Should Track

eSports players nowadays are like the traditional athletes we’re all familiar with. 

There’s a catch though – traditional sport hasn’t changed much from its initial beginnings (for example, tennis may have more complex rules today than it used to, but the physical aspect of it hasn’t changed dramatically). 

However, eSports are unpredictable in the sense that as technology develops, we can’t foresee how they’d visually appear five, or even ten years from now.

The history of eSports and its beginnings are quite interesting, with a bright and promising future as technology advances and continues to develop.

To support this claim, let’s walk through some eSports statistics and specifics. 

Keyhole is a real-time conversation tracker that provides keyword + hashtag analytics and social media analytics across platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Get started for free here.

Did you know that eSports viewership is roughly 85% male, and only 15% female? 

What about the first known video game competition – did you know that it happened at Stanford University in 1972 and the game was called Spacewar? 

What about the fact that the first eSports arena was launched in Santa Ana, California in 2015, making it the first dedicated eSports facility in the USA? 

Or that since 2013 many US universities such as Robert Morris University Illinois have started offering athletic scholarships to eSports players? 

What about some fun eSports revenue facts? Do you happen to know that eSports can bring large profit to individual players too? 

Apparently, as of 2020, Johan Sundstein, a Danish professional gamer, has the highest earnings (he is said to have earned 6.89 million U.S. dollars throughout his eSports gaming career). 

There are many examples that portray the development eSports have gone through, however, as we’re interested in how to monetize eSports, it’s important to become aware of some facts relevant for the upcoming periods.

Here’s a few key takeaways that are important to eSports growth:

• According to a Newzoo report, global eSports revenues will grow to $1.1 billion in 2020.
• China will generate 35.0% of the total global eSports revenue, thus accounting for the largest share of the revenues. 
• In 2020, $822.4 million will come from media rights and sponsorship (this is expected to increase to $1.2 billion by 2023, thus making up 76% of total eSports revenues).
• In 2020, the eSports audience is expected to grow to 495.0 million people.
• In 2019, there were 885 major eSports events and together they generated $56.3 million in ticket revenues. 

What are your guesses for the 2020 eSports events? Get creative. 

How Do You Monetize eSports?

A dynamic competition such as eSports requires dynamic monetization strategies. 

This is something completely feasible with the eSports market, because eSports offers a wide range of monetization strategies to choose from. 

This only serves to further accentuate the innovative and versatile nature of eSports, as well as their open-minded organizational structure. 

It’s useful to know that the highest 2020 eSports revenue comes from sponsorships: 

Sponsorships are indeed important (actually the most important eSports revenue strategy), and we’re not denying their significance. However, that’s just one side of the story. 

If you want to know how to monetize eSports, and you think engaging in sponsorships is the only avenue to secure revenue, you’re missing out on many other equally important eSports monetization strategies. 

Consider income and revenue stream diversification. Never rely only on one eSports revenue stream. 

If you only have a single source of revenue, you risk ruining your finances completely if anything tanks this single source.

eSports are so dynamic and versatile, that it would be a shame to place all your focus on a single eSports revenue option. 

That being said, how do you monetize the fastest growing entertainment industry at the moment? How do you monetize eSports via multiple revenue options? 

Let’s find out together.

Sponsorships 

You already know sponsorships are the largest source of eSports revenue, but you might wonder why. 

Well, with streaming devices such as YouTube and Twitch, it’s never been easier to develop a large social following. Hence, it has never been better to secure a sponsorship collaboration.

In short, an eSports sponsorship is when an endemic brand (brands commonly associated with eSports) or a non-endemic brand (brands offering products/services that have little to do with eSports) that has decided to sponsor a gaming event, a specific person, or a whole team. 

We need to note that, with such a vast choice of sponsorship partnerships out there, brands have much higher criteria nowadays before actually deciding on a specific collaboration. 

There are many remarkable eSports collaborations. 

Some of them include: Cloud9 and BMW, Team Liquid and Honda, Red Bull and Ninja, LPL and Nike, and so on. 

All of partnerships are strategic, and help to strengthen brand awareness in a mutually beneficial manner, and work to promote each other’s brands and take it to the next level.

Suggested Read: How Do I Measure Hashtag Performance?

Broadcasting Rights

Broadcasting rights are another eSports revenue option, and it’s currently seen as one of the fastest growing revenue streams. 

Throughout this year, it’s expected that eSports will generate roughly $100 million in media rights deals – a number expected to grow to almost $400 million by 2021.

And this makes sense, as traditional broadcasting seems to fall behind. That being said, the main difference between broadcasting eSports and traditional broadcasting is that eSports allow for a greater interaction between viewership and the actual players. 

Plus, it’s made possible via many digital platforms such as YouTube, Twitch, SteamTV, and so on, whereas traditional broadcasting is mainly linked to cable TV. 

Also, younger generations tend to form a stronger bond with eSports and the industry in general; they also tend to spend a great deal of their time learning gaming themselves. 

A lot of times, they tune into or stream a gaming event with the purpose of learning something as well as connecting with fellow players. 

This isn’t a one-time thing. Millions of players are eager to watch gaming events so that they can make their own performance better, learn some eSports hacks, or simply enjoy a nice gaming event. 

While this happens, major eSports media brands (such as YouTube and Twitch, for instance) battle for market share. In the midst of all this, tournament organizers should take advantage and try to negotiate better terms with these media brands. 

Suggested Read: Broadcast and Media Companies: Improving Performance with Social Media Analytics

Placing Bets

Betting tends to be slightly controversial, as many tend to associate it with gambling. Plus, taking into consideration that it is the younger generations that engage in gaming, betting may create bigger problems for a younger audience in the long run. 

However, younger generations seem to have access to traditional sport betting in a lot of places anyway (for example, football betting), so this shouldn’t be any different. 

What’s more, placing bets seems to be slowly accepted as a major eSports revenue strategy, so this resistance seems to become less relevant. So although this relatively new approach got off to a slow start, it has caught the attention of many. 

Did you know that betting is expected to reach $29.8 billion, with 15.4 million individuals placing wagers on the outcomes of video game competitions?

Plus, the whole concept of betting, winning and rooting for someone to win seems to be widely embraced by popular culture. And everything embraced by the majority becomes the norm sooner or later. 

Selling Merchandise

If we told you Walmart is selling eSports merchandise for League of Legends and Overwatch, would it be enough to illustrate that eSports are becoming a major part of our daily lives? 

As a monetization strategy, selling eSports merchandise is nothing different from the traditional selling of sport clothing – it’s just another revenue channel (an extremely powerful one, at that!). 

From hoodies, hats, tank tops, to posters and mugs – the idea is to offer something for every fan and satisfy everyone’s wishes. 

This is attractive because it makes players feel closer to their game in real life.

They get to wear what previously only existed digitally, and It becomes part of their physical life. Plus, it allows fans and gamers to show their loyalty and commitment to a particular person/game. 

A very well-known eSports merchandise seller is We Are Nations. Also, there are many popular eSports clothing partnerships such as  the one in 2019 when Leagues of Legends (LoL) partnered up with Louis Vuitton (yes, even the fashion industry has trickled into eSports!)

Louis Vuitton released a collection of video games related clothing and accessories, with a collection of about 40 items (along with a $5,000 leather jacket!)

And obviously such monetization approaches have a massive impact on the overall eSports revenue. Selling merchandise is one of the best marketing and monetization strategies any brand can choose. 

How Keyhole Helps Our eSports Clients Monetize and Increase Revenue

Being aware of how to monetize eSports is great, but it’s not enough in the long run – you also have to know what impact your monetization strategies have on your business. You’ll also need to learn how to grow your eSports revenue more too. 

And we’re here to help.

Suggested Read: Social Listening: Best Practices For Growing Businesses

Let’s walk through one of our clients in the eSports industry. 

We’re going to go through one of our clients’ monetization strategies and outline how they were implemented, as well as how using Keyhole helped to paint a picture of how each revenue stream performed, and what key takeaways were interpreted with the data Keyhole was able to provide.

Case Study: How Our Clients Use Keyhole to Drive Revenue Streams

Our client is a European based eSports company that hosts tournaments for different games across university campuses, such as League of Legends, CS:GO, Overwatch, and more.

They wanted to track, refine and optimize their monetization methods, so they partnered with us to gain insight into brand and sponsorship mentions.

Specifically, our client wanted to track mentions around tournaments they were hosting across different campuses, as well as general sentiment around their brand.

At Keyhole, we have a hashtag analytics tool perfect for clients in the eSports industry, that can be used for event tracking such as tournaments, live stream attendance, influencers you’ve partnered with, or your talented players!

Our client used Keyhole to identify potential players to join the eSports league through our Influencer Management tool, as well as to track their existing rosters’ social media accounts.
By tracking this information, our client is able to identify new players or sponsors that best suited their current needs for different partnerships and events. 

Keyhole was able to provide accurate, real-time metrics and our client was able to secure sponsorship contracts and sponsorship deals by reporting on the metrics of their social media influencer and brand accounts, contributing to their eSports revenue streams. 

Interested in using Keyhole to maximize on revenue streams? You can sign up for a free trial here. 

Suggested Read: Analytics Reporting for Marketers: Building Custom Reports + Sharing with Your Clients

Over the Winter 2019 eSports season, our client tracked three specific hashtags using our Hashtag and Keyword Tracking feature.

The three hashtags they selected were their own brand hashtags, with one of the hashtags designed to promote their Spring 2020 season. 

Over the past year, the hashtags they tracked garnered over 10 million in impressions, and just over 4.5 million in reach.

Taking these metrics into account, our client was easily able to prove and present the power of their platform to potential sponsors.

Alongside their hashtag tracking efforts, our client also used our Social Media Account Analytics feature to track their own eSports Twitter accounts, as well as any associations that they had ties with, such as specific sponsors or university campuses. 

This client was able to demonstrate the value of one of their associated Twitter accounts, citing an extremely high engagement rate of 46.92% (with average “high” Twitter engagement rates normally sitting around 1%) and boasting over 650k impressions, making a partnership between a sponsor and our client a very lucrative opportunity with mutual benefit.

Similarly to some of our other clients in the eSports space, this particular client has also been tracking their partnership/sponsorship activities, as well as the partnerships some of their sponsors have with other eSports teams.

By doing so, this has helped them benchmark their social media metrics and compare performance/engagement between teams.

Real-life examples show that the only way you can improve and optimize your monetization methods is by measuring the performance of your current monetization strategy. 

Don’t forget to track your brand mentions and sponsorships so that you can measure the reach and impact of various sponsors, or any other third-party you’re collaborating with. 

Tracking your mentions will also help you uncover and build new collaborative partnerships.

Finally, you can track your sponsors’ other partnerships as well to benchmark your stats and possibly identify new opportunities and enhance upcoming initiatives. 

Suggested Read: How theCHIVE Uses Unique Hashtags to Engage a Massive Follower Base

eSports monetization strategies don’t have to take up all your time or intimidate you. 

There are various monetization strategies you can try, and your best bet is diversifying your risks and income. 

To know if a strategy works for you or not, simply track the results and see the effect each strategy has on your total eSports revenue. 

Finally, gaming may be an escape from reality for some, but your eSports revenue is real. And that’s why eSports monetization strategies allow you to get creative and never stop monetizing. 

Related Articles:

Sports Marketing: Tracking Social Media ROI, Influencers, and Engagement

Analytics Reporting for Marketers: Building Custom Reports + Sharing with Your Clients

Keyhole is a real-time conversation tracker that provides keyword + hashtag analytics and social media analytics across platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Get started for free here.

The post eSports: Increasing Revenue And Doubling Down On Monetization appeared first on Keyhole.

For nonprofits, that’s more than a good thing. 

Now your work, your impact, and your stories can get the recognition and attention they deserve.

Social media for nonprofits gives you the chance to tell your brand story, interact with your supporters and get them interested to support your campaigns. 

If you haven’t already, you need to start thinking about creating or optimizing your social media strategy.

But wait… 

Being on social media is not enough. Your efforts have to have some sort of return on investment (ROI) otherwise why spend so much time and effort on social media?

So, in comes social media analytics. 

In this blog post, we’ll show you why measuring your social media ROI is important, what you need to be measuring, and recommended tools to use. 

Why Should Nonprofits Focus on Social Media?

Before we dive in, let’s first touch on why social media for nonprofits is an important marketing tool. 

Data by HubSpot reveals that the main reason why nonprofits engage in marketing efforts is to fundraise, generate brand awareness, recruit volunteers and share news.

Social media is perfect to help attain all of those goals.

Why? 

Because over 3.5 billion people currently use social media, meaning there’s no shortage of opportunities to find people who can support your cause through social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

What are we trying to say here?

If used the right way, nonprofit social media marketing can greatly help you promote your organization and find people to help with your mission.

Why It’s Important to Measure your Return on Investment (ROI) / Social ROI 

Let’s get down to business.

According to The New Economics Foundation, Social Return on Investment (SROI) captures social value by translating outcomes into financial values.

While social media is exciting to use, it’s also difficult to place tangible value, especially in financial terms. 

So, even though you got 1000 likes on your Facebook post yesterday, how much did those likes contribute to your bottom line?

For marketers in nonprofits, this is a difficult question to articulate an answer for.

In a world where competition for grants is very significant, calculating your SROI can give you a competitive edge.

How? 

Measuring your SROI helps you to identify what is working and what is not. Not all social media platforms are equal. Some are better than others. 

By measuring your SROI, it will help you identify which platforms are giving you the most return, indicating which platforms you should allot time and energy towards.

Examining your social media analytics will help you see where your social media budget is most effective, especially if you use social media ads. 

You will get insights into areas where you shouldn’t be spending so much money on. 

If you don’t practice regular measurement and reporting on your social media efforts, you may end up spending time and effort on a strategy that is not getting you anywhere. 

The needs of your fans change constantly so you need to keep adjusting your social media content to match their needs. You can only do this by keeping up with your metrics constantly.  

Analyzing your SROI will give you insights into whether there are any gaps in your social media strategy, content, and key messages so that you can improve accordingly and continue to offer value to your audience.

By measuring your SROI, you will give everyone involved in the strategy a sense of purpose and a better understanding of why social media platforms are important to your organization’s mission. 

It will also help to emphasize the value your efforts are contributing to your organization’s overall goals. 

What Metrics to Track

Let’s get down to work. 

There are a lot of metrics that you can track if you want to know how effective your social media efforts are. 

However, not all metrics have the same level of importance.

Many nonprofit marketers focus mainly on vanity metrics, which is the number of fans, followers, and views. 

While these metrics are good to be aware of, they are not the most important when it comes to your SROI and measuring your impact. 

You may get excited to see your video got a million views, but you have to go deeper than just the views.

Beyond viewing the video, how many people out of the million viewers took a desired action such as making a donation? 

Worry not, there is an easy way to decide what metrics matter the most to your nonprofit. 

What you need to do is ask yourself these four questions:

1. What does success look like to us?
   
2. How will we know that we are achieving that success when we use social media?
   
3. What three quantitative metrics can we create to measure this success? (eg. number of donations received)
   
4. What three qualitative metrics can we create to measure this success? (eg. the interest created towards a cause)

With these questions in mind, here are five metrics that can help determine nonprofit social media success:

Engagement

Engagement refers to the kind of response your social media content is getting from your online audience. 

To measure your engagement look at the number of shares, comments, retweets, mentions, and link clicks. 

Here’s our engagement measurement formula:

Why is this an important metric? 

Engagement lets you understand what your target audience values most.

By tracking the amount of engagement your content receives, you’ll know if you’re offering people value and if not, you get a chance to do better in the future.

Reach

Reach refers to how far your messages go beyond your fans and followers. 

When your Facebook fans see your posts are they sharing them with their friends and family? When they read your blog are they sharing it on Twitter?

Reach is important, especially when you’re trying to create brand awareness or promoting a new cause.

You want as many people as possible to know about your organization and its campaigns. 

Website Traffic

You don’t want people to just see your social media content, you want them to take the desired action such as volunteer, donate, get involved in your cause, etc.

The best way to do this is to get them to your website where they can see more about your nonprofit and its activities. 

Make sure that you measure how much traffic your social media efforts are sending to your website, and the kinds of interactions these visitors have on your website.

Most Effective Channels

Focus on the channels that are giving you the most SROI. 

It’s important to understand your most effective channel so that you don’t keep wasting money and effort on platforms that are adding no value to your bottom line. 

Conversion

Remember when we talked about vanity metrics?

Here is where you separate the wheat from the chaff.

Besides attracting millions of fans, you want them to take certain actions.

This could be to donate, click on an ad, attend a charity event, visit your website, etc.

You need to know how many people take your desired actions because this is the one metric that truly informs your bottom line. 

Assign a Monetary Value to Each Metric Measured

Does your social media successfully convert traffic into donations?

Your nonprofit needs to know whether the money and effort spent on social media are adding some monetary value. 

Guided by social media analytics, assign a bottom-line value to each type of conversion.

This will at first prove to be difficult, but as you continue to understand your social media efforts and corresponding goals, you will get better at it. So be patient with yourself. 

Here are some questions to help you assign a value to your metrics:

How much is each potential visit to your social media platforms and website worth to you?

How many donations can you collect through your social media platforms?

How much does it cost you to run effective ads to achieve your social media goals?

How much does it cost you in terms of labor? (consider the number of hours spent on social media marketing over a given period).

How much do you spend on social media tools? (eg. scheduling tools, analytics tools, etc.)

By answering these questions, you will be able to find out how much you spend and how much you make, thus allowing you to quantify (in monetary terms) your SROI.

ROI / SROI in Real Action

#WorldElephantDay Uses Keyhole to Help Find Investors

Every August 12th, the world gets together to save elephants for #WorldElephantDay. 

This annual awareness campaign is led by the World Elephant Society, a nonprofit tax-exempt 501(c)(3) charity organization.

To make sure that the campaign increases reach every year, the organization uses Keyhole for Nonprofits to get more value out of its social media presence in two ways:

1. Find and connect with influencers: Influencers are a great marketing tool to help make campaigns go viral through their spheres of influence. 

• Identifying the right influencers can be a daunting task. World Elephant Society uses Keyhole to easily identify top influencers engaging with their hashtag (#WorldElephantDay), and directly reach out to them to amplify their message every year. 
• By measuring how much reach their hashtag has garnered, they can know which influencers to align themselves with, in future campaigns.
  
  2. Collect campaign data to help secure investors and sponsoring partners: The organization works with Keyhole to help identify campaign reach, engagement, and growth and then organize all this data. The organization then presents it to potential collaborators and sponsors.

The United Nations Gains Consumer Insights with Keyhole

Every Woman Every Child (EWEC) is a global movement that mobilizes relevant stakeholders to address the major health challenges facing women and children.

Much of EWEC focuses on advocacy and helping people to understand why the health of women and children is critical to societies. 

They needed to understand who they were reaching on social media, and how they could measure the success of their strategies. 

Where are these people from? What devices do they use to access and engage with their content?

It was important for the organization to have this data so they could effectively drive their campaign forward.

Using Keyhole, the organization was able to measure:

• Audience demographics (geography, gender, sentiments)
• The effectiveness of partnership engagements
• The geographical reach of their social media presence
• How people were accessing their content

The UN was able to access these insights and extrapolate data to pivot their strategies as needed, and to measure success with their social media efforts. 

Best Social Media Analytics Tools

There are several good social media analytics tools that your nonprofit can use to measure its SROI. Here are our top picks:

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is one of the best tools to use when tracking your website traffic, audience demographics, on-site conversions and sign-ups emerging from your social media campaigns.

Facebook Insights

Facebook has become a popular charity fundraising platform. Facebook Insights, its built in analytics tool, is great in providing you with useful insights in the ‘People’ tab.

You’ll get to see audience demographics such as age, gender, and geographical distribution. 

These insights will help you understand if you are reaching the right audience and the kind of reach and engagement your social media content receives on Facebook.

Keyhole For Nonprofits

Keyhole helps hundreds of nonprofits prove their impact through Social Media Analytics to maximize reach, get more donors, and secure more sponsors over time.

Our tool helps you collect all the important metrics that you need to prove your impact to your donors and secure your donations.

Keyhole helps you to calculate how much interest and awareness your social media efforts have generated.

With this report, you can show your sponsors exactly how much value you bring as a brand partner.

More supporters bring you more funds. 

Through Keyhole you can practice social listening to find all the people talking about your cause and your nonprofit. 

These are your supporters, your advocates, and your ambassadors, people you probably didn’t know you had.

By knowing who they are, you can engage them and convert them into loyal supporters. 

We cannot emphasize enough the value of influencers to any campaign.

Keyhole will find and engage all the influencers and celebrities out there already excited about your cause. 

You want to know how much your nonprofit is growing, right?

Keyhole lets you watch your nonprofit grow over time. You will always be able to tell if your campaigns are reaching more people and if you have more followers and why. 

Wrapping Up: Where Do You Go From Here?

Measuring your nonprofit analytics is a necessary task that should be part of your social media for nonprofits strategy. 

When you’re armed with the right insights, you will always be able to make any necessary changes that will see your nonprofit achieve its overall goals. 

Keyhole is a real-time conversation tracker that provides keyword and hashtag analytics for Twitter and Instagram.

The post Social Media For Nonprofits: Proving Your ROI And Impact Through Social Media Analytics appeared first on Keyhole.