R.O.I. - S.M.

People are having discussions and arguments around social media and social commerce and its ability to bring real cash to the table. Twitter and the rest of the social media platforms have as many detractors as they do fans but the future and the sustainability of the new media will rely on the ability to measure results and then use that to profit from the new channels.

The hype, the wave of excitement, the phenomena of the local and international connections, and the panacea for all marketing ills along with anecdotal evidence of miraculous results are all hooks used to describe social media nirvana. So why the push back? Are expectations being raised too high, amongst the business community, that social media really can bring you new customers, loyal follows and zealots pushing your brand? That’s been the message but the hype is dying down and it’s now time to get past the anecdotal and come up with true results.

A 2009 study by Mzinga and Babson Executive Education reported that 84% of professionals didn’t measure social media results, even though they whole heartily participated and believed in the marketing. Is that because it is such a young media and there was not enough past evidence of success to benchmark against or was it just bloody hard to figure out how to measure success?

With the average consumer seeing 1 million marketing messages a year (3000 per day) and statistics stating that only 14% of the public trusted those traditional advertising channels social media would seem to be the champion of sales and marketing for the future. With 78% of consumers stating they trust peer recommendation over the old advertising platforms some pundits pointed to social commerce having the ability to move a brand or idea from something you love to something you participate in and buy. With the barriers to participate in social media mostly free, everyone jumped on a band wagon and we learnt some quick truths about the tribal life online. We are what we join, we are what we read and we are what we are interested in.

So are we being too hard, after all it’s not like traditional advertising always came up with believable numbers when measuring results. Where an ad in the paper seemed to bring results, we could never be certain it wasn’t something else that generated extra sales.

So do we look at obvious clues such as increased numbers, more engagement and conversions along with awareness to justify our involvement with social media? Or is our inability to measure worthwhile data just another indication that we don’t have control over this tidal wave of social media?

Either way, we have a long way to go before the arguments stop and there is agreement on Return On Investment of Social Media to bring consistent profit results.