Measuring Return on Social Investment
Social media has won over marketers with the promise of connecting brands with consumers on a deeper, wider level. But now that many companies have gone beyond the experimental stages of social marketing, they are focusing on justifying the dollar and time expenditures involved.
According to a survey by Mzinga and Babson Executive Education, less than one in five marketers measured their social media ROI in 2009.
“Marketers believe that measuring true ROI for social media is difficult,” said Geoff Ramsey, eMarketer CEO and author of the Insight Brief “Seven Guidelines for Achieving ROI from Social Media.” “There are so many metrics available that it is difficult to choose which ones are the most important. In addition, marketers do not start with clear objectives for using social media.”
There is a widespread tendency for social media marketers to focus on Website traffic as their default measurement tool. In several independent surveys and studies, Website traffic was deemed the most popular way of measuring social media marketing efforts.
But there is much more to measurement than simply watching Website visits. Marketers ready to go beyond the toe-dipping stage should define their marketing goals and connect them to social media objectives.
Marketers should consider soft metrics as well as hard ones and try to tie a dollar value to them, if possible. And they should not overlook other sources of ROI—such as market research and the customer service value of brand monitoring.
“Importantly, marketers should strive to systematically monitor social media interactions and use this valuable ‘listening/learning’ data to inform their online and offline media and creative messages,” said Mr. Ramsey.