Social media – what is the ROI?

One thing I like about social media campaigns is that they’re measurable; far more so than PR campaigns that have traditionally struggled with the value of column inches. Social media deals in traffic and online engagement, and there are plenty of analytical tools out there which will help you rationalize your statistics and provide insight into how impactful your social media campaign actually is. Let’s be honest, PR and measurement have never been close bed fellows; I’m sure many people won’t agree with that comment but that’s my own view. So, in many respects social media is a god send to an industry that can now use the term return on investment without breaking into a cold sweat.

But, you need to be careful about what you think the return on investment will be from social media. Firstly, this activity is primarily about opening up new channels of communication with existing customers to ensure client retention and possibly increase their average spend. It concerns getting feedback from them on products/services to make your proposition more compelling. It is about increasing loyalty. Therefore, in its primal form, social media is not about selling. If you think it is then return on investment might disappoint. So why bother?

Buyers are using social media to engage and interact more and more with vendors, which means that much of the purchase decision making process is now done via social media tools. Remember, any consumer likes to read reviews/feedback whether it be negative or positive. Much of this dialogue now takes place on social media platforms. The question is can you influence this exchange of information? From my perspective, the answer is most definitely yes.

If companies spend time collaborating with their existing customer base, then the information garnered about that company from social media tools will be so much more persuasive. And that’s good for business.

This is why social strategies should be more concerned with collaboration and generating positive comment rather than providing a quick fix to a struggling sales strategy. If you get the collaboration right, then new customers are a consequence of that activity.

Provoke debate, listen and learn. You have to be active participants in what might be difficult conversations. Leave your ego at home when you start becoming social because you’re now fair game. Your barriers are down and anybody with internet access can question your judgement. And that’s exactly how it should work. They are your customers after all. Did I say anybody with Internet access? Mmm…

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• Social media – what is the ROI? | Blonc Marketing April 30, 2011 at 7:21 am

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  Paul Griffiths May 11, 2011 at 8:49 am

  Definition of PR – from the CIPR

  ‘Public relations is about reputation – the result of what you do, what you say and what others say about you.

  ‘Public relations is the discipline which looks after reputation, with the aim of earning understanding and support and influencing opinion and behaviour. It is the planned and sustained effort to establish and maintain goodwill and mutual understanding between an organisation and its publics.’

  Where I would disagree with you is in separating PR from Social Media. If PR is ‘the discipline that looks after reputation’ and is about ‘what you say and what others say about you’, as indicated in the above definition from the CIPR, then Social Media is simply a new tool for PR practitioners to use in in addition to other methods of communication with their diverse audiences .

  You have highlighted the issue of ‘PR campaigns that have traditionally struggled with the value of column inches’ but this rather simplistic methodology of measuring the success, or otherwise, of just one aspect of PR practice – press relations – has been superseded by other more appropriate measurement tools and options for people who are serious about this subject.

  While there are many places you could go on the internet to see how far the measurement of PR practice has developed might I suggest one organisation – VMS [www.vmsinfo.com] – as a good starting point.

  So while I would agree with you that Social Media might provide a range of tools to measure activity levels that are not so easily available for other aspects of PR practice – the measurment of ‘reputation’, ‘loyalty’ and other such intangibles remains as complex as it always has.

  And, while you might say that Social Media is about building loyalty and not about selling unless you can demonstrate some link between the two the budgets for Social Media, and indeed any other marketing communications activity, will come under very close scrutiny in any business where the ultimate goal is to deliver a profit to its investors.

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