Comments on: Is Social Media Marketing Measurable? The Big Debate.

By: Social media and return on marketing investment « misawchisty1

Social media and return on marketing investment « misawchisty1 — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 23:05:08 +0000

[...] http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/is-social-media-marketing-measurable-the-big-debate/ [...]

By: Michael A. Stelzner

Michael A. Stelzner — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 23:58:00 +0000

Hey Don! Good points. But you know that at larger businesses the accountability thing can be a rather large deterrent to moving forward with new ideas. I would be shocked if any business analyzed the upside and decided to not look into social media marketing.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 23:53:00 +0000

Why is it that Social Media Marketing has to justify itself? Marketing is marketing. It’s value is obvious and the time spent arguing it’s value would be better spent by it’s detractors defending their market share from it’s practitioners. Nothing is more valuable to the sales process than identifying buyers in the research phase and counseling to a purchase decision. The time spent measuring ROI is the real cost, because it contributes nothing beyond reassuring timid minds that more should have been done. Measuring ROI??? is non-productive busy work and to what end? I just want to know the companies that decide against SMM… Their competitors are going to be my best clients. Read that, marketshare available…. come and get it.

By: Nathan Hangen

Nathan Hangen — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 21:38:00 +0000

It’s easy to get caught in the hysteria and buzz of something new. I’m guilty of that as well. I think the ROI calculation is going to be different for someone like me vs big company that pays employees. Although I think social media has great value (some tools more than others), I do worry that we become tied to systems and forget to “unplug.”

I liken social media to building a sand castle. If you don’t take care of what you’ve built, something will come and wash it all away. But I suppose that’s like any other marketing effort.

By: Laura Kinoshita

Laura Kinoshita — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 23:13:00 +0000

I think it’s important to develop a measurement formula based on your ‘logic map.’ Connect outputs like Tweets, mentions, views, etc. to average conversion rates and resulting amount of sales increase. Logically, these types of quantifiable results can be linked to specific (business-based) outcomes.

By: Urs E. Gattiker

Urs E. Gattiker — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 15:48:00 +0000

I like this post of course but I have to disagree that social media does not cost. Anything and everything has opportunity costs.

So instead of playing with your kid you tweet or write comments on a blog post like this or instead of spending time with a customer talking face-to-face.

http://commetrics.com/articles/implement-5-tips/

And while you may choose to do something such as leaving a comment here, putting a Facebook status update there, what do you wish to accomplish with your social media activities should foster prominently in how you want to address this. So before you benchmark you have to figure out what you want to exactly benchmark and measure to see how this might affect customer retention, satisfaction or sales numbers

http://howto.commetrics.com/articles/blog-metrics-1/

Thanks for a very helpful post.

Urs
@ComMetrics

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 03:41:00 +0000

Great article and comments. What makes this so tough is that, by the time a sale is made or new customer signed on, they may have experienced a long cycle of building the relationship with you via SM. So, maybe the person first followed my Twitter, and then took a link to an article back on my site, then at some point signed up for my blog or newsletter, or downloaded a white paper, or signed up for a free webinar.The stats may show that the customer became a lead when he/she downloaded or signed up for that webinar, but in reality the funnel started a long time ago with social media. Or even search engine rankings that were made possible from dozens or hundreds of blog posts. It’s seems impossible to tie the sale or deal to that first Tweet.I don’t think we’ll ever be able to fully measure ROI from social media for these reasons, but I do agree that companies have to start showing some sort of payoff for the time invested, such as what percent of site traffic comes from each SM avenue, then measure increases in signups that bring people in as real leads.

By: PostRank

PostRank — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 15:55:00 +0000

Aww, thanks! It makes us feel good to be like Christmas. If you have any questions or whatnot, do feel free to give me a holler.

By: yinka olaito

yinka olaito — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 08:23:00 +0000

One of the best ways to measure inputs into any project is to have a laid down goals that is measureble. Thanks for this piece, It helps a lot @pathfindernig

By: Cindy King

Cindy King — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 07:26:00 +0000

I agree with you Sara. I think it is a step in the right direction and can’t wait to see where the great minds out there will lead us. Just looking at the different ways companies have used social media marketing to date, I think we are going to see more interesting stuff in the future