We all love case studies. Who is we? We in the SEO industry, we in social media and online marketing, we business people. Case studies show on real life examples, real websites, projects and campaigns that something works.
Good case studies are more than proof though. They also show you how to market or optimize a site. They show an example of how it actually works.
Case studies combine both, the insight of a how to articles and the business proof of a finished campaign. They shows the results from experience.
These are some of the reasons why I’ve collected a comprehensive list of 30 SEO, social media & marketing case studies that prove the ROI of it All.
Yes, the ROI in SEO, social media and other kinds of online marketing is still too often fuzzy. We want success stories, numbers and explanations so that we can reenact the steps you need to succeed. So here they are, enjoy:
Link building/baiting
- Link Bait Case Study: How We Got a Link from The New York Times
- A Case Study: Using Contests To Build Links
- “Inkbait”: A Case Study In Linkability
- 21 Link Builders Share Advanced Link Building Queries
- Link building case study
Other SEO
- What’s the Value in SEO?
- Search Marketing Success Stories
- SEO Case Study: PRSA Jobcenter
- How we made $1 million for SEOmoz—with one landing page and a few emails
- How we increased the conversion rate of Voices.com by over 400%
Social Media
- I now pronounce you monetized: a YouTube video case study
- Newsweek (Interview with Mark Coatney of Newsweek Magazine’s tumblr)
- Early Proof That Geolocation Marketing Will Succeed
- How LIVESTRONG Raised Millions to Fight Cancer Using Social Media
- How Virgin America Uses Promoted Tweets
- Cold-FX: A Fun Canadian Healthcare Social Media Campaign
- IKEA’s Facebook Campaign Gets Praise
- 3 Things We Can Learn From IKEA’s Facebook Campaign
- Successful Ikea facebook campaign shows importance of offering deals to consumers on social media
- Twitter for Business Case Study: @B2BOnlineMktg at 90 days
- How Moonfruit got Twitter right
- Moonfruit Twitter Campaign Analysis
- Breakdown: 4 Ways Brands Are Earning –and Buying– Followers on Twitter
Blogging
- A Case Study in Mass Blogger Collaboration
- How I Got 50k Visitors to My Blog in One Month
- How I Really Built a Blog with 6,500 Subscribers
- 4 Foundations of a Successful Blog
- Case study: the anatomy of a blog storm
Other
- Case Studies in Freemium: Pandora, Dropbox, Evernote, Automattic and MailChimp
- Dell case study / Dell.com case study
It took me more than a year to collect those case studies so they are only those that I really think are worth your attention. Most of them are not overt advertising or blatant self promotion, they are quite neutral case studies you can rely on.
Take note that I included more than one (actually three) articles about two particularly successful marketing campaigns on Twitter and Facebook. The results were to good to not get covered in depth.
Of course we at SEOptimise have our own SEO case studies. You can download them here and here as PDF documents.
Great list, Tad. May I add a few resources from our online library of Gov 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 white papers and social media case studies?
INgage Networks has over 14 white papers, a few of which are even focused on the healthcare industry and CPG brands: http://www.ingagenetworks.com/white-papers.
The 13 case studies include transportation customers, global brands, and even one case study that highlights our own use of social media apps and how we have identified cost savings of $10,000 PER EMPLOYEE: http://www.ingagenetworks.com/case-studies.
And if your visitors prefer video, our YouTube channel offers short clips of customer how-tos and testimonials: http://www.youtube.com/user/INgageNetworks#p/u/9/TJgFtaYs2iU.
Thanks again for your list!
C
@INgageNetworks
Hey, Tad.
Sick list of case studies, pal. And thanks for the plug and the link to our NY Times link bait study. Much appreciated.
Cheers!
Ken
mate, do u think its a good idea to include usability case studies?..A decent list is available here http://www.usabilityfirst.com/about-usability/usability-roi/case-studies/ and http://www.useit.com/
Great list of case studies. They are very informative and helpful.
nice case studies – have a look at yet more simple reasons to engage in social media – the fact it inflates your natural seo ranking…..
http://www.searchmuse.com/blog/2011/3/21/top-10-seo-social-media-ranking-factors.html