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There’s no media like earned media, and with over 3,000 users, Ayzenberg Group’s Social Index is the industry standard for measuring it. Also known as free media, publicity or (in Europe) advertising value equivalency, earned media is the exposure you receive from reactions by third parties (including journalists, bloggers and consumers) to the actions you take to create buzz for your brand.

Unlike paid or owned media, earned media is organic. In today’s environment, it’s primarily the recognition you receive, including likes, shares and comments, from the content you post on your social media channels. 

Consumers listen to family and friends in a way they rarely do to marketers. Because “word of mouth” has always been considered the most trusted (and therefore best) form of advertising, earned media’s appeal goes beyond its unpaid aspect. When people share their passion for your brand with everyone they’re connected to online, they’re acting as brand ambassadors who promote you in a way money simply can’t buy. 

Given the importance of earned media, it’s essential for you to understand its worth and how it factors into your overall marketing budget. That’s why Ayzenberg Group developed the Social Index, which has become the benchmark for measuring social performance.

The Social Index will help you track the ROI of your social media, influencer and content marketing campaigns across all major social media channels, even in an environment in which metrics for engagements such as Value per Click (VPC), Value per View (VPV) and Value per Share (VPS) are constantly changing. 

Ayzenberg Group’s Social Index team strives to assemble the most data points possible for precise engagement metrics. Compiled from decades of media research, expertise and AI-driven technology, the Social Index provides the most accurate and up-to-date measurements for specific industries. And with the Social Index’s API, these metrics become even better suited to your needs.

Quick to set up, the Social Index API is a simple tool you can use to bring real ROI values to your platform, internal reporting system or analytics dashboard. Updated daily, the index works with your tools and processes to give you the most precise values available for your social media investments.

How Does The Social Index Work?

Ayzenberg Group uses an integrated approach combining scientific methodology, statistical precision and a technical algorithm to produce the most precise values available for social media. It takes social network data related to the costs of reaching certain audiences as a starting point and then applies layers of knowledge, experience, math and machine learning that are the core of its proprietary formula. 

With a focus on actual engagement and not just passive impressions, the Social Index provides up-to-date earned media values for metrics across major social networks, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, Pinterest, YouTube and LinkedIn. These values have become key reporting metrics for hundreds of companies, helping them understand the overall effectiveness of a campaign quickly and efficiently. 

The Social Index includes premium values for specific industries, providing the most precise numbers possible. It is a continual work in progress, updated daily and pulling from a variety of data points for industries that include automotive, entertainment, beauty and fashion, consumer electronics, food and beverage, healthcare, travel and leisure, gaming and financial services. 

Vincent Juarez, principal, media director at Ayzenberg and one of the creators of the Social Index, stresses these industry breakdowns are a critical and differentiating element of the index. “As a company with a long history in paid media, we know that our baseline values were just the first step. Our plan has always been that once we had more information from the industry in addition to a programmatic way to monitor changes in pricing on the platforms, we would revise our method and produce a nearly real-time Index,” he notes.  

According to Ayzenberg Group’s VP of product & technology, Chris Strawser, “As a marketing agency, we have nearly 30 years of experience analyzing the experiences and connection audiences have with brands. The methodology behind the Social Index grew out of that consumer journey, the power we predicted social media would have on that path and the need for brands to define the equity they were building through social speech. 

“The Social Index was built to provide precise brand social media valuation, and we use the wealth of our own campaign data for some of the most prestigious brands in the world in tandem with trusted third-party sources as inputs to our calculations. This process, combined with our expertise in consumer and audience analytics, forms the basis of a methodology that we feel confident in defending.”

The Social Index can be accessed at AList (socialindex.alistdaily.com), which is introducing products and services designed to empower marketers with the tools they need to succeed in today’s social environment.