One of the biggest 'criticisms' of social media that companies have, is the difficulty in measuring the return on investment for their efforts. Many believe that widespread business adoption of social media won't happen until a clear benefit to the company's bottom line can be measured. Of course, these people are totally missing the point of what social media is, and why it works.
First, let's back up a minute and remember where social media came from. 'Social media' is a fancy term used to describe tools such as blogs, podcasts, wikis and social networking sites, where people create content, share it with each other, and connect. Really when you think about it, message boards, chat rooms and IMs could just as easily be called 'social media' under that definition. For years, people used these tools to write blog posts, create profiles, and connect with each other. And they did so pretty much without the rest of the world catching on to what they were doing.
But around 2005, blogs in particular started getting a lot of mainstream attention. Then there was the 'MySpace Phenomenon'. In 2006, YouTube and Facebook got on everyone's radar. So suddenly you had all this mainstream media attention being thrown at social media. All the facts and figures on how many millions of people were actively using these tools made marketers take notice. The thinking was that if all these hundreds of millions of people were using these tools to communicate, then why could companies start using social media as a way to push their marketing messages to these people?
So in the last year or two, there has been a rush by companies to get involved in social media. And of course when companies got involved in social media, they wanted to have a way to measure their efforts, they wanted to know that they were getting a return on their investment.
And this is where the trouble started.
The trouble isn't coming from companies wanting to know the ROI of their social media efforts. That's a completely valid and necessary consideration. The problem is, many companies that start using social media, are attempting to measure the wrong things. Many companies want to see a direct line drawn from time/money spent on social media, to a direct impact on the companies bottom line. They want to know that if they write X number of blog posts, that sales will increase by Y percentage points. That if they leave X number of tweets on Twitter, that Y new sales this week will be the result.
In short, traditional marketers are wanting to measure the ROI on social media as they would many of their traditional marketing efforts. But that's the problem, because blogs, Facebook, Twitter, and other social media channels were never intended to house and push marketing messages. They are personal communication tools.
Let me say that again; social media are PERSONAL communication tools.
Now you see where the problem lies. Companies are wanting to treat these personal communication tools as if they are marketing channels, and measure their effectiveness as such. As
social media expert Jason Falls said: The problem with trying to determine ROI for social media is
you are trying to put numeric quantities around human interactions and conversations, which are not quantifiable.
Bingo. In order for companies to accurately measure their return on their social media efforts, many need to fundamentally rethink how they view social media, and what they want to accomplish with these tools. If social media are fundamentally communication tools, then doesn't it make sense to measure your social media efforts by viewing them through the lense of how effectively they allow you to communicate and connect with your customers?
Instead of measuring how sales or revenue has been impacted from your blogging efforts, what if you started measuring comments per post? Or emails you get from readers? How about tracking what percentage of online mentions are positive/negative, and how that changes as your social media efforts unfold. What about subscribers to your blog?
The point is, view social media as a way for you to better connect with your customers, and to build positive relationships with them, and measure your efforts with those goals in mind. And as you increase the number of positive interactions with your customers via your social media efforts, positive online mentions of your business will likely increase, and your customers will be far more likely to evangelize your business online, and to trust you.
And come to think of it, what do you think the net result that increased trust and positive interactions with your customers might have....on your company's bottom line?
Exactly. You can definitely measure the ROI on your social media efforts, you just need to realize what social media IS, and perhaps just as importantly, what it IS NOT.
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